Newcomer
by Uncanny Gemstar
Summary: This is my story on the Ark, from my first moments on the beach to the end of my days. I face a harsh world of dangerous creatures and even more dangerous people, but I'm not going down without a fight. I will survive this island, you can count on it. (warning, I may/will be altering minor details of the map or the dinosaurs to make it more realistic or for writing purposes)
1. Chapter 1-Adventum

A slight breeze blew, cooling the hot and humid tropical air around me and the suns rays felt warm and pleasant on my skin. The sand beneath me was cool on my skin and the sand of waves lapping on shore was soothing and peaceful. I stayed there, enjoying it for a while before my conscious mind really began to kick in. Where am I? A beach? Maybe? Why am I on a beach? I open my eyes slightly, the easiest part of my body to move at the moment and my senses are assaulted by what felt like a laser aimed directly at my cornea. I promptly slam my eyes shut to block out the offending burning sensation. I wait for what felt like ages, then slowly open my eyes again. The light isn't quite laser intensity anymore, but is still incredibly aggravating and uncomfortable. I force myself to stick through it, my eyes watering as discolored spots began appearing in my vision, but eventually my eyes adjusted enough that it didn't burn anymore. I blink several times to remove the tears gathered in my eyes and to drive away the spots from my vision. My vision is covered in a field of blue, so either I'm looking at a cloudless sky, or I'm looking at the bottom of something blue, though it's more likely that I'm looking at the sky.

I try to sit up, but my body is almost completely unresponsive, my fingers and toes being the only part of me to actually move. The tingling feeling of pins and needles climbs up my arms and legs and it's uncomfortable, but there's nothing I can do about it right now. I start to get some feeling back in my neck and I manage to lift my head to look at myself. For some reason, I'm not wearing a shirt or shoes, but thankfully I am wearing a pair of off-white shorts and a layer of sand. I attempt to sit up again and my arms respond this time, but I don't seem to have full control and my hand pushes clumsily on the ground to bring myself up with a finger curled up under it. I manage to get to my feet shakily and nearly fall back onto the ground, but I manage to keep upright. I steady myself as my limbs get all the feeling back into them and my balance is restored. Once I'm confident I'm not going to fall flat on my face I yake a look around at my surroundings.

Currently I'm standing on the edge of a swath of pristine sand bordered by a sea of sparkling crystal blue water and lush green forest. The ocean itself is calm and nearly flat, the tallest waves probably not exceeding my height, and it extended all the way to the horizon where it met the bright blue of the sky in an almost seamless manner as the sky reflected itself on the water. It was an absolutely beautiful sight and would have probably brought tears to a lesser person or a romantic, though I was neither of those and took a few seconds to appreciate it before moving on. The sand of the beach stretched maybe fifty feet from the water before it gave way to more solid dirt, massive sparce ferns, and tall skinny palm trees that towered overhead while casting down long shadows over the beach. A little way down the beach lay a pile of large boulders jutting from the sand erratically like a careless giant had dropped them by accident and never bothered to pick them back up.

I look back at myself and remember that I'm still coated in dried sand, and immediately seek to remedy it. I brush the sand from my shoulders and chest, then run my hands through my hair vigorously. A rain of sand falls in front of my eyes as I continually shake my hair until it thins and eventually stops entirely. I doubt that all the sand is free of my hair, but it's good enough. The sand on my arms is the next to go. I wipe the sand off my right arm first, but when I wipe my left I feel something hard and smooth that isn't my skin or the sand on it. Confused, I wiped more of the sand off to see a diamond shaped of a metallic material embedded in my arm just below the wrist. I stared wide eyed for a moment, stunned. I touch it with my other hand as if to prove it's really there, then begin to panic. I claw and pry at the object with as much strength as I dared, but it doesn't budge so much as a centimeter.

I'm interrupted from my attempts to remove the object by a loud hissing sound. I wheel around and see a pair of aggressive yellowish eyes staring at me from a particularly thick cluster of ferns. A number of dangerous animals run through my head, feral dogs, wolves, bears, and big cats come to the forefront of my mind. The owner of the eyes steps out of the ferns and it's obviously not even close to any of the carnivores I thought of. It stands at about three feet at the shoulder and is just shy of eleven feet in length, though most of it's length is tail. It walks on two legs like an ostrich or bird of prey and has a rather long pair of arms with four clawed fingers on its hands. It's birdlike neck is held erect and it's head is vaguely lizardlike in shape, but with a pair of crests stretching from the back of its skull to halfway down its snout. The creatures jaw has a deep notch in it a few inches from the end of its nose and long, glinting, spike shaped teeth protrude from its lips. It's neck seems to be covered in loose brightly color skin and it's back is bedecked in thin quills reminiscent of a porcupine's, and the rest of its body is covered in pebbly scales.

It stalks towards me slowly, moving it's head and shoulders side to side as it did so. I take a step back in fear and the creature suddenly rears up and the skin on its neck springs forward into a frills. It shrieks and makes a gargling sound, then spits a glob of thick greenish slime at me. On reflex I jump to the side, allowing the projectile spit to sail past my shoulder and splatter harmlessly on the sand behind me. The creature seems to frown despite not changing its facial expression, and does a half step half hop towards me, it's frill partially retracting. It flares it's frill again, hissing and making that disgusting and terrifying sound. It makes to spit at me again, but in a stroke of brilliance or idiocy, I run up to it and punch it in the jaw, sending it's second shot careening away uselessly.

I try to kick it in the shin, only to have it made painfully obvious that unlike a person, it's legs aren't held directly under it's body, so instead I've kicked it in the knuckle, which only makes it angrier. It pounces onto me, sending me backwards onto the sand. I grab it's snout with one hand and hold it's jaw shut, and with the other I attempt to keep its flailing claws away from my body. The creatures struggles and hisses any time it can open its mouth, and tries to slash open my chest incessantly, but it's not incredibly heavy, so Ican just barely manage to keep it out of range. It realizes this and raises one of it's clawed feet to try and slash me with. I grab one of its arms and roll sideways, pulling it with me since it was off balance from standing on one leg. It slams heavily on the sand and I hear the air forced out of its lungs. I scramble to my feet and it attempts to do the same, but I'm on my feet before it is, and I body check it in the side, knocking it over again. I bring my foot down on the side of it's head, pinning it to the sand. It thrashed for a moment before falling limp.

For a moment I panic and think I've killed it, before realizing it's chest is slowly rising and falling. I lift my foot slowly, half expecting it to lunge up and bite several of my toes off, but it lay there still, playing dead. I step back look it over, noting the various nicks and small scars across it's body. Most of it's body is a dark bluish teal, while its back is a more greenish color, and it's stomach is a caramel brown. The crests on its head and it's neck frill is a bright orange color, and the quills on its back are vibrant crimson along with its hands and feet. It's obviously a dinosaur, despite the impossibility of it being one. I know I've seen it before but I can't recall the name for the life of me. I crouch down, having momentarily forgotten it was playing dead and that I didn't have impunity to look it over. It leaps to it's feet and screams that blood curdling cry, then darts off as fast as it can back into the forest, nearly tripping over itself in it's desperate attempt to flee. While it does that, I scream in surprise and fall back onto my behind roughly, thinking it was attacking me. I laugh breathlessly and lay back on the sand, my heart beating a mile a minute, though my lungs weren't pumping near fast enough to get oxygen to my body.

I lay there panting for several minutes before I cant ignore the hot sun on my face any longer and I get up. I check myself over for any injuries I missed in the heat of the moment and find a number of small cuts on my arm, probably from the dinosaur's quills. Luckily for me though, none of the quills are actually lodged in me. Assuming they were like a porcupines, they would be nigh mpossible to get out by hand. Considering though that the dinosaur's quills would have to be modified feathers, and not spiky hairs, they probably wouldn't be very similar in structure, though what do I know, maybe they're nearly identical, but it doesn't really matter.

I dust the sand off myself once more , then check my surroundings again. I don't know where I plan on going, but I can't stay here on the beach and just wait to get rescued. The dinosaur is bound to come back here again eventually, and I don't want to be sitting out here in the open or asleep when it does. After a moment of debating whether to travel along the edge of the coast or to go into the jungle itself, I make my decision and stride into the ferns without looking back, hoping I had made the right decision.

Aside from the giant ferns the undergrowth was nearly non-existent, and the trees were branch less palms that left plenty of space in between one another, so travelling through it wasn't difficult. Truth be told, it wasn't much of a jungle as my first impressions implied, but regular woody trees began to mingle with the palms, and the ferns were steadily being replaced with large leaved plants with woody stems that I didn't recognize. I kept going for what felt like ages, though it couldnt have longer been longer than thirty or forty minutes until I came to a clearing where I stopped to catch my breath and cool off from the tropical heat. Vines hung down from nearly every branch of the exceptionally large tree I sat under, their lengths growing low to the ground before climbing back up to coil around another branch. The ground was mostly bare soil, though a few patches of grass had sprouted where light manage to reach the canopy. My footprints show up clearly in the soil and I track my own path through the undergrowth when I catch a glance of another set of tracks. They look like an oversized set of thick toed bird feet, and I realize to my terror that they belong to the dinosaur from the beach, or at least another dinosaur like it. I look around in a panic and pick a direction other than the one the dinosaur tracks took and the way I came, and take off running through the brush for probably a hundred feet before I realized that it was causing way too much noise if I'm trying to go undetected and I slow to a halt. I remain perfectly still and listen for several tense moments, though I heard nothing aside from the quiet drone of insects and the occasional far off groan of some large animal. Satisfied that I hadn't summoned my own killer, I continued, though at a much slower and cautious pace.

The environment is surprisingly bare, the jungle being endless reiterations of the same ferns and shrubbery and trees. Occasionally a flowering vine adds a splash of color to the green, and I walked past a single massive boulder a while back. Otherwise this is really bland and rather boring, and if I couldn'tturn and see the ferns I had disturbed behind me, I would probably think I was walking in circles. Out of the blue, or green, a pair of massive dragonflies with wings at the very least two feet across zoomed towards me and circled me in a hovering fashion. Their bodies were covered in glittery and shiny chitin, and their heads were mostly two huge eyes and a monstrous insect mouth. They hovered there in the air, observing me with their expressionless eyes, then speed off again. I shuddered and watched them go out of sight before I continued on. While the dinosaur was clearly more dangerous than the insects, they unnerved me far more than the dino did. At regular size, insects are kind of creepy but I'm okay with them; when the creepy buggers are bigger than most birds though, they're downright mortifying. Though having a giant insect as a pet does have a certain appeal to it when I think about it. Guard dog? Why not giant venomous guard scorpion or guard spider? Though I imagine that training or catching one would be pretty difficult. The idea still stands though, assuming there are other giant insects, and that I don't get eaten or mauled by a dinosaur.

Up ahead, I see something through the trees. I move forward with greater purpose. Hopefully it's something other than creepy bugs that can break this monotony and boredom. Huh, I'm in hostile dinosaur territory and giant dragonfly territory and I'm bored. Wow, I'm actually impressed at my own capacity to be bored in this situation. I break forth from the underbrush and nearly stumble on the uncluttered ground. I stand in what I first though might have been a clearing, but a massive field of knee height grass stands before me, and towering over it, giant dinosaurs.

I recognize a few kinds of them immediately. A herd of at least a dozen surprisingly prickly looking parasaurolophus wander about, browse from the trees on the edge of the forest, or lay hunkered down resting. Dotting the field scarcely were the bulky forms of triceratops, who seemed to be much more on edge than the hadrosaurs, checking their surroundings and sniffing the air often. Lithe dinosaurs that resembled ostriches but much less feathery skirted around the larger dinosaurs and darted across the open space, sometimes stopping to snap at something concealed in the grass. A few bat-like creature with long tails perched on the backs of the parasaurolophus. However one was adamantly trying to roost on the back of a triceratops, which wanted no part of it, and shook itself vigorously whenever it landed to rid itself of the pest. It flit around it's head, dodging easily whenever the triceratops flicked it's head in an attempt to stab the tiny creature with its huge horns.

I watched their antics for a while, until I realized I was having trouble seeing. I blinked several times and realized that the sun had nearly set without me noticing. I debated for a while whether sleeping out on the plain among the herbivores or in a tree would be safer before deciding that I'd rather not get trampled in my sleep. I climbed up one of the trees with some difficulty, but I managed to pull myself up. I climb up to a large crook in one of the branches and nestle into it as comfortably as I can, and I begin to nod off when I slip to the side. I panic and grab onto the branch for dear life, then readjust myself so I'm balanced again. I ponder how I should prevent myself from falling, then take notice of the vines hanging from the branches around me. I yank one down and loop it around the trunk, then tie it snugly around my waist. Then as an extra precaution, I tie a loop in it as best I can and stick my hand it to it. Satisfied that my vine system would save me from falling, I lay back and drift off into an uneasy sleep.

 **A/n:**

 **Well that was the beginning of my very first fanfiction. Anybody who reads this, I hope you enjoyed and please leave a review, and let me know if I've made any major mistakes grammer wise or continuity wise. If I get some support or at least vague interest in this story I'll keep working on it because Ark has a disappointing lack of fanfictions for such a great game I want to remedy that. Have a great day, night, or whatever time you want, or don't, as I can't tell you what to do.**

 **Edit: whenever a chapter has a warning of blood and mildly grisly scenes, that will almost always mean that there is a descriptive fight scene or a dinosaur or character being injured in an exceptional way, I will try to keep everything under M rated however, so no worries**


	2. Chapter 2-Tirocinium

**Warning: mention of blood and a few rather grisly scenes, you've been warned**

The sun rose over a quiet and calm morning. A few early rising parasaurs milled about aimlessy while the triceratops population were already awake and cautiously drinking from the river, lifting their heads to check for danger every few gulps. The lithe ostrich like dinosaurs were also awake and were preening their plumage, calling out to one another occasionally in the dim morning light. A Dimorphodon flitted about crowing and squawking, receiving annoyed squawks and grunts from other dinosaurs who were trying to get a little more sleep before the day began. It alighted on a tree and crawled across the branches, looking for any dragonflies or other small animals to snack on when it came across something odd. Intrigued, it walked up to it, sniffing it and poking at it. After a few moments of investigation it opened its jaws and tried taking a bite of one of its extremities. The owner of the extremity woke up immediately with a sharp yelp of pain. The dimorphodon itself shrieked and took off in surprise.

I flailed and tried to regain my bearings, having no idea where I was or what was happening. I tried to to get up, only to be unable to, being tied to whatever I'm leaning up against. I thrash and try to free myself, and fall sideways. The world pitches and I'm suddenly hanging nearly horizontally. My arm is caught in something by the wrist and it pulls tightly, it being the only thing keeping me from being upside-down or falling to the ground. I grab whatever is attached on my wrist and pull myself up, hoping I wasn't cutting of too much circulation. I lean back against the surprisingly smooth bark of the tree as my memories from the day before catch up to me. I look down and see that the object in my wrist is still there and that my bounds are the vines I pulled down and tied myself. I breathe out heavily in exasperation and relief, feeling quite foolish for my near life ending stunt. Quickly the vines are untied and I'm perched in the tree, watching the serene and scenic early morning and checking for any unsavory types that would like to have me for breakfast.

Suddenly, as if rehearsed, at least a dozen mostly bald birdlike heads pop up and point in the same direction, staring intently into the undergrowth. They all hold stock still, not even a twitch visible aside from the sparse blinks, but all of them were tense and ready to make a mad dash for safety if need be. A lone individual stumbles out of the forest, swaying unsteady and flicking it's head back and forth as if in panic. The others watch for a moment, before one by one they hunker back down and resume preening. The one that stumbled out of the forest steps forward cautiously and pants heavily, then darts out into the tall grass of the field. It's back and neck rise above the tall foliage and I can easily see it's zigzagged path. It trips and falls, nearly disappearing under the grass cover. As it struggles to it's feet, I see a second shape enter the grass, only a faint ripple betraying it's presence. I watch as the ripple slowly approaches the dazed and panicky dinosaur. The other lithe dinosaurs pay no heed to their frantic comrade, but the nearest trikes watch intently and paw at the ground, tossing their heads anxiously. The ripple moves to a few feet in front of the ostrich creature, who is now threshing it's head back and forth in the grass, rubbing it's face against the greenish strands frantically .

Suddenly a smaller dino bursts from the grass and bites down on the feathered creatures neck. It screeches and attempts to throw it off, but it only succeeds in having it's assailant's teeth sunk deeper neck. The flock of it's comrades are immediately on their feet and they take off in all directions, leaving the crested dinosaur to it's quarry. The birdlike dinosaur, now bleeding profusely from the neck, tries to run as well, but is brought down with a yelp, and I assume that the carnivore had clamped onto it's leg. The grass shakes and rustles, and horrible shrieks of pain ring out from the dying dinosaur. All I can see is the occasional flailing of one of their tales or head, then a gargling scream and no more.

I shudder and look away from the grisly scene, realizing just how much danger I was in the day before. The crested dinosaurs are vicious. Said dinosaur's head rose up above the grass and swallowed a bite of flesh, then looked around suspiciously before looking directly at me. I realize with horror that the green and red scaly face is identical to my assailant from the day before. I'm gripped with horror and tense up, and the dinosaur seems to do the same. We stare at each other across the field for a few intense moments that feel like ages until abruptly the crested carnivore ducks down and I see it's grass ripples streak in a beeline towards the edge of the parasaur herd, where it disappears behind one of the surprised hadrosaurs.

I stared for awhile, watching for it to double back towards me, but it never does. As a precaution I wait for a few more minutes before starting down. As carefully as I can, I begin climbing down the tree one branch at a time like a twisted organic ladder. Once I'm pretty low on the tree I decide I'm close enough to the ground to jump. I underestimate the distance and drop ten feet to the ground, where I manage to land on my feet only to fall backwards awkwardly. A bit ashamed of my display, I pick myself up and brush away the dirt, being reminded that I still lack a shirt and shoes.

I scan the immediate area, still expecting the crested carnivore to come back for a rematch. When no such thing happens, I move into the unnaturally tall grass, my shoulders being level with the tips of them. I tread carefully, watching for any snakes or traces of a concealed predator. A sharp pain lances through my foot and I jerk back, barely holding in a shout of pain and alarm. Immediately, me being paranoid, I think I've managed to get bitten by a snake. I breath out in relief when I see that I've only managed to step on a particularly sharp rock. It's about the size and general shape of a clam shell and one side looks sharper than the other. On a whim I pick it up and continue making my way towards the carcass.

I jerk to a stop, nearly stepping on a lump of bloody meat. I step around it cautiously, not wanting to smell like dino blood as much as I can. The body is pretty much intact, the carnivore only having eaten a bite of it's upper leg and some of it's innards. It was a beautiful yellow color with green plumage, now stained shades of dark red and crimson. It's face is covered in thick greeen slime and it's eyes are bloodshot where they aren't concealed by it. I gag momentarily at the mess oozing from it's stomach but I muster up enough willpower not to empty my own stomach and avert my eyes. Surprisingly it didn't smell near as bad as I expected, though it had been killed only minutes earlier.

I turn away and take a deep breath, then get to work hacking off as much as I can scavenge from the skinny dinosaur. Very little blood actually seeps from it even as I crudely carve flesh from the side of it's ribs., but then I realize I'm barely getting any meat from it, only a thin fatty strip and hide. I think it over for a minute, nearly putting a blood covered hand on my chin before thinking better of it. I set to work chopping meat chunks from the muscular base of it's tail, this yielding a lot more than the tiny strips I was cutting before. Idly I wonder how I could have possibly done this without the blade rock when my hands are suddenly soaked in hot liquid. I stand immediately and step away as blood floods over it's tail and leg. My stomach wretches and I nearly throw up when I attempt to cover my mouth with my hand.

A loud buzzing sound rings out and slowly grows in volume as I'm doubled over, fighting the urge to throw up. I glance back at the carcass and see the pair of eagle sized dragonflies from yesterday circling the dead dinosaur, then landing on it and sawing at its exposed innards. That was enough to tip me over and I puke, the bitter taste of stomach acid filling my mouth. I'm thrown off balance and collapse to my knees, spitting out as much of the acidic taste as I can. I hear the loud buzzing again and I turn to see what's agitated the dragonflies. They're both hovering in the air bobbing back and forth towards me aggressively. I get to my feet quickly and back away slowly, the bugs following me. I wheel around and dash away as fast as I can. I hear an odd noise that I can only assumed I made myself and keep running. I smack one away from me when it tries to land on my arm and it crashes into the grass with a panicked buzz. I didn't stop, I just kept going as their aggressive buzzing rang in my ears. I don't know how long I was running but I realize I've stopped and I'm swaying on my feet.

Flopping down in the shorter grass, I begin picking the flecks of leaves and plant matter from my now even more disgusting blood covered hands as best I can. After I've calmed down and regained stability in my legs, I stand and look around to see how far I've ran. I'm actually surprised, I ran probably three hundred feet from the carcass, and I'm now right by the river I saw from the tree.

Taking this as another stroke of good luck, I squelch through the muddy bank and into the water, washing the blood off me and down the river. The water's incredibly clear, the blood I washed off myself and the silt I stirred up the only thing clouding it. Still tasting the bitter vomit taste in my mouth, I take several steps upstream and swish some water in my mouth, glad to be rid of that awful taste. Feeling thirsty, I take a drink of water and my stomach doesnt complain, so I greedily drink some more down to quench my dry throat.

My stomach growls and I realize I haven't eaten since some time before yesterday afternoon. In a moment of realization I groan in frustration and facepalm loudly. I didn't grab any of the meat when I ran from the dragonflies, and I apparently dropped the stone at some point. I can see the swarm of oversized insects that have gathered at the corpse from here and I don't think that being ripped apart by hungry insects is favorable to being hungry for a while longer. I mean I'm not going to starve for another couple of weeks unless I'm more undernourished than I'm aware of.

I hear a deep rumbling and the sound of a quiet splash somewhere behind me and I see some large ripples in the mostly smooth water. I can't see what made them, but it can't be good considering the other creatures that live here. Continuing my currently nomadic lifestyle, I start down the river away from the source of the sound, keeping a berth of three feet between me and the waters edge as a precaution. I can only hope I'm actually going to make it wherever I think I'm going.


	3. Chapter 3-Proelium

**Warning: mentions of blood and a few rather grisly scenes, you've been warned.**

"Why does everything want to kill me out here!?" I scream to the universe as I ran as fast as I could from the giant reptilian pursuing me. In answer, it hissed and bellowed menacingly and snapped it's long toothy jaws shut with a loud snap. I was faster than the monstrous beast but it pursued me relentlessly, far past where I thought it would give up. We're well back into the hilly plain and the river it crawled out is far out of sight by now. It's jaws open wide and it bellows again, then it lunges forward a few feet and slams it's jaws shut with a loud snap. I sidestep to the right and it misses me by barely a foot. Panicking, I cut hard to my right towards a large boulder lodged in the ground. The croc struggles to turn, it's body preventing the quick change in motion and it lags behind me.

I clear the boulder and double around to the left edge, pressing my back to the stone surface. I peer around my impromptu shield a few seconds later and see the rear half of my pursuer passing behind the other side of the rock. I circle around the boulder as it walks past. It straightens it's front legs and raises itself up. It swings it's head back and forth slowly, looking for it's quarry that seemingly dissappeared into thin air. The herbivores, who had seen us from a distance and given us a wide berth decided to put a little more distance between them and the croc in case it decided to take it's anger out on them. The beastly crocodilian gave a deep hiss and slowly turned back in the direction of the river, angrily thrashing it's tail back and forth through the grass. I watch until it goes over the crest of a short hill and out of sight, then I drop to the ground. I groan and offhandly note that this is the second time I've run for my life on an empty stomach today, and it's not even noon. "I've got to find something to eat, I can't keep doing this." I stand up and brush the dirt and grass bits off myself. The herbivores have gone back to grazing and a parasaur approached the boulder. It peers down at me quizzically. "What are you looking at?" I snap irritably. The parasaur makes a cowlike noise and shakes it's head, then bends down and takes a mouthful of grass before stomping a few yards away to a small bush. I expect it to eat the leaves off the bushes, but instead, it reaches it's snout under them and starts eating something I can't see.

My stomach grumbles and I'm reminded again of my lack of meals. I walk over to the parasaur and see that it's gobbling berries off the ludicrously fruit laden bush. The berries were all of different colors and shapes, some being yellow, others red or light blue, and still others were dark blue, purple and white. It picks off the red, yellow, light blue, and the purple ones, but avoids the dark blue and white ones adamantly. Taking this as a hint I sprint over to the second nearest bush, guessing the parasaur wouldn't be particularly happy if I started taking food from literally right under it's nose. I lift up it's leaves to see that dense clusters of berries hang under it too.

Immediately I pull off a large handful and sift through then, tossing out the darks and the white ones. I pick out a red one but hesitate, glancing back at the parasaurolophus who ate on without any ill effects. My stomach growls for what must be at least the fifth time and I pop the berry in my mouth and chew it up before I can decide otherwise. The berry is sweet and tastes a little like a strawberry, and I don't feel any worse than before, so I take this as a good sign and begin stuffing my face. I strip the bush bare and I'm pretty sure that in my haste I ate some of the dark and white berries, but I don't feel sick other than what's probably just from eating dozens of berries in under ten minutes.

With my hunger taken care of, I wonder why the dinosaur wouldn't eat the dark berries or the white ones. The simple answer would be that they're poison, but since the other berries on the bushes weren't and I didn't die or anything from probably eating a few. I debate trying one, but they might actually be toxic and I got really lucky and didn't happen to eat any of them. Deciding it's not worth the risk I wipe my hands on my pants and pitch the berry I debated trying. I stand, ready to continue my journey, only to remember I have no idea where to go. I don't want to risk another run in with the super-crocodile so following the river is not an option any more. I glance up and see the sun isn't directly overhead. It's still morning, probably, and I'm pretty sure the sun rises in the East, so I think the river flowed north south. So that means that I'd probably be going North if I turn so the sun's on my right. It's not like it particularly matters if I'm heading North or South as I don't really have a destination other than not here.

With that mentality I set off in what I think is North, passing by the parasaur, who gives me another grunt as I go. I stop and look back at it, but it's already moving back towards it's herd. I shrug and continue what I seem to do most. Walking. I seem to be doing that a lot lately.

Like the jungle, the plain is pretty boring. The terrain is uneven and the grass has patches of different grass heights, though I'm sticking to the shorter grass, not wanting a surprise attack from anything that might be hiding in the taller growth. I walked for at least an hour, and every so often there were little flocks of three or four of the ostrich looking dinosaurs or parasaurs wandering about or feeding. A while later I passed a lone triceratops, though the others I saw by the river this morning are nowhere to be found, having apparently stayed nearer the river today. The trike looked uneasy and raised it's head every now and then, then snorted loudly, shook itself, and returned to eating. A few of the snub nosed bat-like reptiles flew about, searching for food among the tall grass. One in particular sought out the triceratops and landed on one it's eye ridge horns. The trike didn't notice for a while, but when it raised its head to check it's surroundings it let out a grunt of surprise and shook it's head vigorously. The pterosaur took off with a squawk and flitted around it for a moment before settling on it's frill. The ceratopsian would feed for a while, shake off the pterosaur, walk over to a new shrub, and repeat the cycle. It appeared annoyed, but looked overall more relaxed. I watched amusedly for a while, recognizing them as the same pair from the night before, then realized I had stopped and begin moving again.

I hadn't gotten another thirty feet when a loud shriek rings out. Me and every other living thing in the immediate vicinity whip around at the dimorphodon's scream. Said pterosaur had hidden on the trikes back just behind it's frill, and the triceratops had taken an aggressive stance, having lowered it's head so that it's horns are pointed forward. Everything is tense for a moment, then an obviously carnivorous dinosaur rockets over the hillside with a furious roar. It's head is blunt with a near round skull, but what makes it instantly recognizable is the pair of spiked horns above its eyes.

The carnotaurus runs straight for the triceratops, who braces itself and thrusts it's head forward in an attempt to thwart it's attack. The abelisaur serves to the right, dodging the ceratopsian horns. It slams it's jaws down on its side so fast that it's scaly face is a blur, but it's effects are a apparent immediately. A ragged semicircular gash mark now mars the herbivores hide and a shallow bite of flesh now resides in the stomach of the carno Taurus. The trike roars in agony and wheels around and swings it's head with enough force to throw off it's passenger, though the therapod avoided the attack easily, having already ran out of reach.

It circled around and came back in for another strike, but the herbivore whipped around to face it at the last moment. The carnotaurus slammed into the frill of the triceratops awkwardly, narrowly avoiding stabbing itself on the horns. The triceratops throws the carno off itself and it lands on its back on the ground with a high pitched yelp of pain. It scrabbles to it's feet with great difficulty, it's tiny backwards facing arms providing no help. The trike charges, intent on spearing the predator through the stomach, but the downed carno lashed out with its clawed foot, pushing back the herbivore and slashing the side of it's face. The triceratops reels back with a and the carnotaurus gets to it's feet and lunges, locking it's teeth around the trikes horn. The carnotaurus pulls it's head back without letting go, forcing the triceratops forwards and it's feet fail to get enough purchase to hold back the carnivore. Twisting it's head sideways and forcing the trike to do the same, the carnotaurus attempts to push over the injured animal and end the fight quickly. One of the triceratops' front legs lifts off the ground and it panics, knowing that if it falls it won't get back up. It thrashed it's head sideways in the same direction the carno was pushing, and because it stopped resisting it's force, the predator lurches forward to it's surprise. In a single fluid motion, the triceratops steps back, thrusts it's head up, and gores the right side of the carnotaurus' face from it's bottom jaw to the horn above it's eyebrows, leaving a nick in said horn's surface. With a sideways slam of the head, the broad side of the trike's horn strikes the carnotaurus in the throat, cutting off it's airway for a moment. It coughs and staggers backwards, breathing heavily as the blood from the gash on its face begins getting in it's eye. It circles the trike slowly, both animals worn out from the conflict but neither willing to give in yet.

Meanwhile, I had dropped to the ground as soon as the fight had began and was watching half concealed in the grass as the other herbivores who hadn't fled at the sight of the carno did the same. I honestly didn't know who to root for in this situation, or if I should root for either at all. The carno needed meat to eat, but what makes the trike more deserving to die than the carno? If the carnotaurus won, I'd probably be able to scavenge some meat from it's kill, but it would still be around to eat me later. If the trike won, there would be one less dinosaur trying to make a meal out of me, but I'd be out of luck in the food department. As I debated this, the fight started up once again.

The carno springs forward and the triceratops lowered itself to block it's charge, but the carnivore leapt sideways, dodging it's deadly horns. Striking in the same place as it's first attack, the carnivore's high speed bite connects with the already bleeding animal's side. The trike grunts in pain and tries to throw off the therapod clamping on it's side, but the carno dug it's teeth in deep and refused to let go.

Abruptly, the tiny pterosaur that had been flying in circles overhead shrieked and dove down towards the carnotaurus' face. The enraged pterosaur dug it's stubby claws into the side of it's face and began mauling the gash inflicted by the trike with it's oversized needle teeth. The carno squeezed it's eye shut and shook itself head as best it could without compromising it's grip, but this only spurred it on further. Having noticed the carno clamped it's eye shut, it began furiously pecking at and pulling on it's eyelid. The carno whipped it's head back, releasing it's grip, while further goring the side of the trike. It wailed and thrashed it's head back and forth, trying to remove the creature inflicting agony on it's face. The pterosaur ceased biting for a moment, then sprung from it's face. The carno, seeking to kill the nuisance that tore at it's face, snapped at it, ignoring the larger dinosaur it was no longer biting down on. The triceratops took advantage of the carno being distracted and jabbed at it with it's eyebrow horns. Luckily, or unluckily, for the carno the trike's horn impaled it's stubby arm, jabbing into it's shoulder blade underneath. The carnotaurus squealed in sheer pain, writhing and thrashing violently til it was freed from being impaled with a sickening ripping sound. The carno took off as fast it could, the flesh of one of it's arms barely remaining attached. It sprinted past me in a panicked frenzy, stomping not even thirty feet away from me.

I'm jolted back to reality as I realize that I was nearly just trampled and that I wasn't just watching the battle from omniscient safety. I keep hunkered down, but watch as the carno disappears over a hill. My heart is beating a thousand miles an hour and I fear that the carno will hear the rapid thumping and come back after easier prey. That prey being me. I wait for my heart to slow to the point I don't fear a heart attack before getting back on my feet.

I look back to the trike to see that it's collapsed on the ground, panting heavily. The wound on it's side is bleeding rather profusely but the cut on it's face had stopped for the most part. The pterosaur was flitting around, fretting over it, and the trike half heartedly tossed it's head to shoo away the pterosaur. The pterosaur seemed to calm down after that and landed on it's injured comrade's face. It carefully began licking at and cleaning the the slashes across the exhausted dinosaur's face, making sure not to accidentally nip it with its oversize teeth or poke it in the eye with a wing claw. It becomes obvious that the two share a bond, a symbiotic partnership of sorts. The pterosaur would alert the triceratops whenever something dangerous comes along and nurse it's wounds after battle, and in exchange, the trike would protect both itself and the pterosaur. It was incredibly clever and appeared to be quite effective. I can't imagine how their symbiotic partnership would have began, and if it was the pterosaur that came to learn that the trike would protect it, or if the trike figured out that the pterosaur could tell when a carnivore was approaching before it could.

It was a rather cute scene in a way. The huge, injured, normally formidable dinosaur being nursed by the tiny and fragile flying reptile. However, the trike was still bleeding, and there are more than one hungry carnivores out here who would gladly take this opportunity. The swarm of oversized dragonflies for example. They would rip the incapacitated dinosaur and pterosaur to pieces if they came across them. I need to clear out of here quickly. The whole area is spattered with flecks of blood, and the aforementioned dinosaur that's still bleeding from the lower back. This is going to attract something much more dangerous than I am soon.

It also just occurred to me that I'm out here completely defenseless, not even having my sharp rock anymore. What would I have done if the carno decided it wanted me instead of the trike? It's obviously faster than me and I extremely doubt I could get lucky like I did with the crested dinosaur. I would have been eaten alive and the most I could do would be punching it in the nose while it did so. At the very least I need to find a new sharp rock or two dull ones. Making a spear or hatchet or some other kind of stabbing or cutting tool would probably be a very good idea. The only problem will be finding wood for a handle unless I go back to the forest which is literally probably miles away. It's not like I have anywhere I need to be, it's just that it'll take a lot of time and effort and wasted energy on my part to get there, and for all I know about wherever this place is there might be a forest twenty minutes from here if I keep going the direction I am. I shake away my nerves and steel up my will and set off once more, still continuing my trek across dinosaur country.

 **A/N:**

 **Greetings my readers, I know you don't want to be reading authors notes, so I'll keep this brief. I plan on updating this story every Friday, though I may end up updating a little early or late depending on how much trouble I have writing the next chapter. I also will not abandon you guys by going on hiatus without fair warning. I will also let you guys know whenever I've done any story relevant editing to previous chapters so you don't get confused if I reference a previous chapter that I've changed.**

 **I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, let me know if I've made any grammar mistakes or misspellings and I'll get on it and fix it right up.**

 **And the last order of business, you guys can leave a suggestion for the names of our recurring Trike and Dimorphodon and I'll pick out whichever I like best and give you a shout out at the start of the chapter I mention their names in. See yall later!**


	4. Chapter 4-Pascentium

As the sun shines brightly down on me, I wish I had more clothes if only to remove them to lessen the stifling heat. Rather surprisingly though, I've been walking in a straight line across a pretty barren field for at the very least two hours and I'm only just beginning to even tan. It's bizarre, but I don't question it. I'd rather have bizarre sun resistance than becoming crispy skinned and sun burnt. Plus considering the dinosaurs and extinct animals and all, being resistant to sun burns is a welcome and far less bizarre phenomena than that mess. The sun's passed the height of its arc and is about halfway down the sky, and currently the day is at its hottest with only a few whispy clouds to obscure the field of blue sky.

The heat is even beginning to take its toll on the dinosaurs, the ostrich like ones held their heads low and panted heavily whenever they ran, and the parasaurolophus had given up entirely on trying to move about and graze, opting to lay on their sides in an attempt to cool down. I still didn't see any more of the trikes that were at the river this morning. Clever brutes could probably tell it was going to be hot and stayed near the river and shady forest, or maybe they knew that the carnotaurus would be on the warpath. Either way, the sun's attempting to slow roast us alive and the trikes are nowhere to be found.

I'm not entirely sure how long I've been walking or how far I've gotten from the carnotaurus, but it feels like it's been a long time, and I'm beginning to regret not having turned back and going to the forest. At least in the forest there'd be some shade and relief from being cooked alive by the sun, but the crested therapod lives over there and I really don't need to mess with that. I've technically already beat it in a fight and stole a kill from it. I doubt he or she is going to be very friendly if I run into them again. Hopefully, considering this seems to be the carnotaurus' territory, the crested carnivore won't come out here. The last thing I need is for it to come up and eat me in my sleep tonight.

There's not much I can do about that now, considering I have no weaponry, or really anything at all. My sharp rock is gone and I haven't found another one yet, and the dinosaur meat and hide I cut up has almost certainly been devoured by the dragonfly swarm. Whenever I've gotten hungry I've had to look for a berry bush that hasn't been raided by hungry herbivores before I got there, which is surprisingly difficult to do despite the bushes being scattered about all over the place. Most of the bushes only have the dark blue berries or both the dark blue and white ones. I'm glad I didn't try one of them now if none of the dinosaurs will eat any of them.

A loud screeching noise reminiscent of an alarm clock abruptly bursts from the grass next to me and I catch a glimpse of reddish quills moving through the tall grass rapidly. Instantly I assume the worst and jump back, preparing to dodge the venom spit know is going to be followed by brutal teeth and claws. Except the spit never came and neither did the lethal claws.

Confused and feeling a little bold, I part the grass to find something that's distinctly not the carnivore I've been dreading. Instead of the multiple shades of teal and red, its body is a brownish yellow with grayish hands, belly, and face. It's back is covered in dark reddish orange quills and feathers, most of its quills forming a row down it's spine to its tail. It turns to look at me with a pair of beady eyes. It has a beak with a normal looking top jaw but bizarre looking lower jaw, forming a sort of scoop shape with two pointy tusks jutting from other beak's keratin. It stares at me with suspiciously for a few moments before turning back to it's berry bush. I watch as it engulfs at least a dozen berries with its oddly shaped mouth, and pulls back its head, not leaving a single fruit behind.

Satisfied that I'm not in danger for my life any more, I skirt around it, the scoop jawed dinosaur giving me the most evil of looks every time I took a step, probably thinking I was trying to take its berries. I'm about to walk away from the unimportant dino, when I see that while glaring at me, its taken a bite with several of the dark blue berries. I take a few steps back and watch for any ill effects to overtake the small herbivore. It feeds on unperturbed for a few minutes before it shakes its head and blinks repeatedly. It backs up and looks around confused, then hones in on me. It screeches even louder than before and leaps at me. It lands directly on me, catching me off guard and knocking me down. It nips at me with it's beak and thrashed aggressively, though it isn't actually hurting me that bad. Its attacks quickly begin decreasing in speed and accuracy until it collapses on my chest limply. I sit there wide eyed for a moment, a presumably dead dinosaur just sitting on my chest.

I'm wracked with guilt, thinking I've killed the innocent tiny dinosaur inadvertently. I hesitatingly put my hand up to its neck, then sigh in relief when I feel a pulse. I gently set the unconscious dog sized dinosaur off my lap and onto the ground next to me. It's tongue lolled out of its mouth and it snored softly, its foot twitching every now and then.

So it seems the berries are a Narcotic then. I suppose that would be almost as dangerous as poison. If you get knocked out then you can't defend yourself from carnivores like the carnotaurus or the dragonfly swarms, which makes you pretty much guaranteed to die out here. Weaponizing these would be majorly devastating, probably as much as actual poison or using fire, as you wouldn't actually need to kill them, just leave them to anything that happens upon them. You'd probably end up with a flock of dragonflies or something just following you around to feed on everything you knocked out.

I check to make sure the scoop beak is alright and hasn't stopped breathing or something, but it's still sleeping peacefully. I kneel in front of the half eaten berry bush and begin plucking the dark blue berries from the bush. A small pile of at least two dozen berries has accumulated before I realize I have no way to carry them other than walking around with them in my hands. I sit there and puzzle this for a second and a loud snort from behind me has me turned around instantaneously. I roll my eyes when I realize it was just the scoop beaked dinosaur grunting in its sleep. When did I get so jumpy? I've only been out here for two days and I'm already panicking at the slightest unexpected noise. I'm about ready to pull my hair out. Wait, I just had a really dumb idea.

I wrap my hands around the bush's stem and yank on it hard. It bends and the soil seems to loosen, but it refuses to come free from the ground. I dig in the dirt surrounding the plant, freeing some of it's smaller roots, then try pulling again. I place my feet sideways to help me get better traction and put all my weight into it. I'm sent backwards as the base of the woody stem suddenly ripped out of the ground. I throw out my arms and flap them awkwardly to stop me from falling for like the fifth time today and manage to save myself a new sore spot.

I grin to myself, feeling rather clever. I've successfully gathered an entire berry bush that looks surprisingly like a fat, bonsai sized palm tree. It's a little heavy but easily manageable if I carry it over my shoulder or with both hands. I snack on a few berries, picking out the red ones specifically because they taste the best, the other ones being too bitter or sour or not sweet enough, save for the bright purple ones, which taste like instant cavities, so sweet they're almost sickening to my stomach.

I'm about to set off, looking like what I'm sure a true survivor looks like, a shoeless and shirtless guy with a tiny palm tree on his shoulder, when I remember that the scoop beaked dinosaur is still unconscious out here in this organic hellscape. I set the bush down and consider what I should do with the sleeping saurian. I could carry it with me until it wakes up, but it would probably cause a pretty vocal ruckus that I don't need drawing in inquisitive predators. The dino suddenly twitches and kicks out with it's legs, and it's chest begins rising and falling a little faster. I take this as meaning it's waking up soon, and set a pile of berries lacking any dark blue ones near it's nose for its trouble, then resume my interrupted trek, the entire berry bush over my shoulder slowing me down slightly.

The sun still burns brutally bright and hot on my skin, but the leafy fronds over my back help keep some of it off me. Thankfully though the wind has picked up and a steady breeze is blowing now, sending waves through the tall grass. The ostrich dinosaurs have perked up and are sprinting through the grass in their little flocks, their heads held high once more. The parasaurs have also started to become active once more, a few of them walking around and munching on berry bushes. I'm also starting to notice the occasional sails of quills that skirt through the grass from berry bush to berry bush. The quills blend in surprisingly well with the blades of grass, and they blow in the breeze like the grass too, making them almost undetectable unless you're looking for them specifically.

Ive been walking for probably thirty minutes, enjoying the gradually cooling temperature and quiet calls of the herbivores when an aggressive saurian roars sounds out in the cloudless day like a thunder clap. I freeze, recognizing it as the same roar from earlier today. I crouch down immediately in the shin high grass and hold the tiny palm in front of me so I'm hiding under the leaves. It's a pathetic attempt at camouflage, but it's better than nothing and if the carno runs past, he or she might not notice the slightly large bush. The carno roars again, still out of sight however, and a second, much less impressive roar sounds back. I recognize it too. The crested therapod must be lurking around, probably messing with the carno. That little carnivore seems to have a talent for biting off more than it can chew.

From around the other side of a nearby hill, the familiar bluish green body of the crested dinosaur I still can't remember the name of darts away in a zigzagged pattern. Bolting after it is the injured carno, furiously growling and snapping at the smaller predator, though it can't turn fast enough to bite down on it, and the smaller seems to know this. It hoots and screeches, and takes turns and stops at random, enraging and pestering the battle damaged carno to the point where it's biting wildly in its general direction even when it's clearly out of reach. They run past me about twenty feet away and I notice that the crested carnivore has a piece of meat clenched in its clawed hands and the carno's mouth is bloody. That means either the carno brought something down and the crested dino tried to steal from it and pestered it, or the crested dinosaur made a kill and the carnotaurus took it, and the crested wasn't having any part of it. Either way, that means there's an unguarded kill in the immediate vicinity.

As stealthily as a guy holding a bush can be, I slowly make my way around the hill the pair of carnivores came from behind, then start sprinting around as quick as I can without dropping my berry bush. I follow the trampled down grass and occasional blood splatter until I find the fresh corpse of a parasaur. Its side and thigh has several large bites taken from it, along with a large bite mark to the back of the neck and one to the face. Incredibly lucky for me, the corpse lays next to a rock, though a swath of flattened grass leading from it means that it was definitely the carno who killed it and dragged it here, probably to help hide it from others who would try to scavenge. Not that it helped hide it from me or the crested dinosaur obviously.

I drop my bush, though I'm careful not to smash the berries. I circle the boulder, searching for a new sharp rock. I find a stone that's bigger than I need and too blunt, so I take several steps back, then throw it against the boulder as hard as I can. It breaks into pieces, though a larger piece maybe half the size of the original remained intact. I pick up the larger piece, noting that one edge thankfully did break into a sharp point.

Makeshift blade in hand, I set to work hacking off a chunk of meat as fast I can. I resist the urge to gag as blood gushes from the fresh gash I'm sawing into the dead dinosaur's body. I pull the roughly circular chunk of hide and flesh free and look around fearfully, hoping the carno doesn't show up and devour me. I wipe the blood off my hands as best I can and grab my bush and meat chunk. I stop dead as the carno roars again, much nearer than the last time it did. I dash around the rock to hide and grab as many of the knock out berries as I can and begin crushing them over the meat chunk, soaking it in the juices. I edge around the boulder and toss the drugged meat onto the corpse, then duck back behind the boulder and hide behind my bush that's proved a better hiding place than food carrier.

The carnotaurus sauntered up, breathing heavily, though from what I can tell, it's only from the exertion, not injury. It lay down next to its kill in the shade of the rock and licked at its macerated forearm in a rather cat-like manner, reminding me of a lion with how it's behaving. It reached over and tried to take a bite from the parasaur, only for it to be out of reach. It growled and rumbled in annoyance and tried to scoot over to it without standing, only to fail and be forced to get up. It took a step forward and turned, positioning itself so its meal was within reach. It took a bite from the side of the dead hadrosaur, scraping its teeth across it to both shred the meat to make it easier to swallow and to get more of it into its maw. The chunk of meat I had drugged slid off the carcass, having landed scale side down and being knocked off easily by the carno. It glanced down at it and tilted its head. It swallowed the meat in it's mouth and bent down, grabbing the chunk and stripping as much meat off it without hide as it could with only its mouth. It swallowed, then shook its head and licked its lips, tilting its head once more as if in confusion, almost certainly noticing the berry's taste.

The carno tenses up slightly, then raises its head and turns directly towards my hiding spot. I shrink back and hold my breath, hoping and praying it hasn't noticed me. I listen intently as it growls quietly and sniffs the air loudly, then I hear it stand, it's feet thumping on the ground and crunching the grass. I remain perfectly still, still holding my breath. The carno doesn't move either, or if it does, it does so quiet enough that I don't hear. It gives a curt barklike roar and growls threateningly. From the grass opposite to me, but on my side of boulder, a small beaked face I recognize pops up. It's not the same scoop beak from before, this one has a dark brownish grey color with a green face and hands, and its quills are a light off white color. It stares at the carno, who stares right back. Abruptly it screeched like a car alarm, then ducked back into the tall grass with an air about it as if it won an argument. The carno blinks several times, bewildered, then snorts and relaxes once more. I breath out in relief, then realized my folly instantaneously.

The carnotaurus whips its head back around and steps forward slowly, then roars sharply, a booming sound not unlike a small explosion. I flinch but don't budge from my spot, knowing it's trying to flush me out. The predator growls and moves forward to look for me around the boulder. Trying to pull off a maneuver like I did with the crocodile, I move around the boulder as the carno does the same on the opposite side. I pass by the partially eaten prarasaur and see that it did eat my drugged piece of meat.

The scoop jaw passed out about a minute after it started trying to attack me, and started feeling it at most a minute before that, and it ate maybe six or seven of them. The carno is a good deal larger than the scoop jaw, but I squeezed at least fifteen or more of the berries onto the meat. Using that logic, the carnotaurus will probably only start feeling them within the next ten minutes. I don't think I can play the world's most dangerous game of ring around the rosie for that long. I'll have to try and make a break for it or do something or I'm going to get eaten.

I cross around the corpse only to nearly run face first into it's tail. The carno is sniffing intently at my uprooted bush and the spot where I had stood before. It shook it's head every few inhales to clear away the blood that dripped from it's lips and hindered it's sense of smell. I backtrack a couple of steps, keeping it's tail tip in view. I get an idea and slice off a small piece of meat, then throw it as far as I can. The bit of meat tumbles into a nearby patch of particularly tall grass with a wet thump. The carno turns to it immediately as lowers itself, ready to pounce. It takes off like a rocket and swings it's head sideways through the grass, ripping out several clumps with its horns. It wheels around ripping and tearing up the grass in a frenzy of high speed bites. It keeps it up for at least a minute and I watch as it takes out it's frustration on the hapless grass.

The carno stomps it's foot and noses through the grass, picking out the piece of meat and swallowing it whole. It pants heavily and drools, and slowly stomps unsteadily back to it's kill. Once it reaches the dead dinosaur, it starts to lay down, then collapses on its side unconscious. I'm actually surprised, though really, it just got its blood pumping hard and was already tired from chasing the other carnivore. It was bound to happen quickly. An animal built for speed like that has to have some impressive circulation to get oxygen to it's muscles. However that also means any contaminant that gets into its bloodstream gets sent around its body at high speed.

With the immediate threat taken care of, I pluck the last handful of Narcotic berries from my now quite ragged bush and pry open the carno's mouth. I stuff the berries into its cavernous l maw, careful not to cut myself on its sharp teeth, then push its jaws back shut. Well that should keep him out for a while. I grab my sharp rock and begin cutting up meat for the third time, though at a more relaxed pace. Remembering that the ostrich dinosaur had most of its meat on its tail base and upper leg, I start there, cutting out a hunk of the hadrosaur's flesh. I manage to hack out a roughly cube shaped piece of meat with hide on one side, then slice off some rope sized strips of hide. I wrap the hide strips around the meat like one would tie up a bundle of newspapers and start cutting out a second piece.

Behind me, the crested dinosaur jumped out of the grass snarling, it's frill fully flared and it's quills raised. It falters and stops mid snarl, looking back and forth rapidly between me and and the seemingly dead carno. It's frill flops limply and it seems mortified. It doesn't move, obviously thinking that it's really stuck itself in a bad situation. A creature not much larger than itself has bested and spared it, then slew a carnotaurus seemingly unharmed. It didn't move and didn't takes it's eyes off me, as if expecting me to suddenly turn into a terrifying monster. Taking a gamble, I turn my back to it and resume a second meat block and tie it like the other, then cut off another strip of meat.

I turn back to the crested dinosaur, who had been slowly approaching the carno, and it freezes. I toss the meat piece a good distance away from the carno, then stand and move over to the carno itself. The smaller carnivore yelps and turns tail, putting about ten feet between us in our new positions. It sniffs the bit of meat suspiciously and looks between me and it cautiously. I look away, keeping it in my sight but no longer looking directly at it. It's bristles go down a bit and it scarfs the morsel in two bites, throwing it's head back in a birdlike manner to swallow. It looked fearfully back at me to see how I would respond, but I ignored it and cut more meat from the seemingly inexhaustible feast.

Taking a bigger piece of meat this time, I toss it to the skittish dinosaur. The dinosaur flinches back and it lands in the short grass off to the side. It stayed a few feet away from it, sniffing intently and resisting gobbling it down while watching my every move. I turned to place my third bound up meat hunk with the other two and when I turned back, the meat was gone and the therapod had a little more blood on its lips than before. I throw another piece of meat, this time closer than before. It steps forward slowly and reaches out just as slow without breaking eye contact, then grabs the morsel as quick as a flash and swallowed it whole.

It takes one of its half hop steps away from me, still waiting for me to attack or to do something preternatural. Seeing as how this is going so slow and the carnotaurus won't stay knocked out forever, I unbind one of my meat cubes and throw it to the carnivore a bit closer than the last. It hits the ground and rolls, settling on its side about two feet past its initial landing point. The dinosaur, still panicky, yelp and ran a few feet before realizing it was just a much larger piece of meat. It checked again just to be absolutely sure I wasn't about to rip it to shreds, then pounced on the meat, tearing into it with it's notched jaws.

After cutting off another and hopefully final piece of meat, I set down my sharp stone and walk up to the crested dino slowly. It notices my approach when I'm about six feet from it and it swallows one more bite before standing up at full height and taking an aggressive stance. I lower myself and continue approaching sideways, my hand with meat outstretched towards it. I'm nearly on my knees by the time I'm within reach and I've lowered my head, though not too low so as to be left unable to see the still dangerous carnivore. It remains unmoving, watching me for any sudden movements before hesitatingly taking the meat from my outstretched hand. I slowly move my hand to rub its snout and while it tenses up and its frill twitches but it makes no moves to attack me. The scaly dinosaur allows me to rub its nose gently without trying to snap my hand off. It relaxes ands it's quills lie down somewhat. I move my hand to rub under its Chun and it lurches backwards with a growl. I hold my hands up with palms facing outward to show it I don't mean aggression.

Behind us, the carno suddenly snorts and both me and the crested dinosaur whip around to see the muscles in it's neck and down its side are twitching. The crested dinosaur and I share a look for a moment before we both seem to realize what the carno twitching like that means.

I'm on my feet in an instant and I sprint over to my bound up pieces of meat. I stab my sharp rock into one of the chunky and grab them by the makeshift hide handles. I start running in what I'm pretty sure is the same direction I was going in before this. I get to the top of a short incline and turn back to see that the crested dinosaur still stood by the downed carno, looking unsure of what to do, whether it should follow me or if it should run off in the other direction. It looks up at me from below and I hold out a hunk of meat. After a few more moments of hesitation, it begins following me up the hill. I turn and start running again, trying to put some distance between me and the slowly waking hyper predator.

After about three minutes of running, I slow to a rapid walk and wait for my second wind. My meat bundles have surprisingly stayed together and my sharp stone hasn't fallen from its place stabbed into the top of one. I check back behind me and see the ripple in the grass heralding the crested dinosaur maybe thirty or forty feet behind me. I also realize now that I left my bedraggled palm tree back with the carno. I throw my head back to glare at the sky and groan at my own stupidity, then start back on my way despite my feet's protest. I idly think to myself how odd it would be to see another person out here in this condition, or how odd it would be for someone to see me like this.

Abruptly my face is introduced to ground and my toes are racked with pain. I roll onto my back and clench my hurt foot, gritting my teeth in attempt not to scream. I look around for whatever I tripped and stubbed my toes on, expecting a concealed rock or dinosaur bone. Instead, a dark colored barkless shaft of wood sticks up from the ground at an angle, one end stabbed into the ground, the other broken off in splinters. I nurse my stubbed toes for a minute, clenching them until the pain dulls to the point I can put up with it. The crested dinosaur has caught up with me and is laying down perched several feet away, watching with disinterest and confusion at my antics. I grab the wooden pole and wriggle it back and forth through the dirt, loosening it. Taking a better position, I pull on the end of it hard and after a few strained seconds it pops free. I fall on my backside roughly from the sudden lack of resistance from the stick. My eyes go wide. The end of the stick has a pointed stone, far sharper than my own, lashed to it with strips of fibrous rope like material that is obviously man made. The crested dinosaur growls softly, sniffing the air while glaring at the broken spear aggressively.

 **A/N:**

 **So! That was a doozy. Longest chapter chapter so far, and I my original intent was to make it several pages longer, but I wanted to release it for you guys as soon as I could. I had some fun writing this, especially about the adorableness that is the yet to be released pegomastax.**

 **Also, has nobody noticed that in ARK you can run around shirtless for days without getting sunburn? Like at all. Not even in Scorched Earth do you get sunburnt, and the sun is so intense it's made the entire world a desert. So in light of that I felt it deserved mention here.**

 **One more thing, technically, our protagonist hasn't tamed the dilo. The dilo and him have reached a truce of sorts. The dilo doesn't belong to him and still does whatever it feels like, but it recognizes that our protagonist is a capable survivor with power enough to knock out a carno, and by extention, the much more fragile dilo. So the dilo follows him around, doesn't try to eat him, and helps defend him, and in return it gets fed by, defended by, and not attacked by our protagonist. It's less of blind loyalty and faith and more of them both recognizing that the other is a superior predator and survivor and will survive better with the others help. So it's more of a partnership than master and pet relation.**

 **Also, if this wasn't clear in last A/N, I will update update this story once a week, with Friday being the last day I'll update it by. So if I don't release a chapter on like Wednesday or Tuesday, it'll be released Friday, or I'll alert you of haitus. So sorry everyone who thought there'd be two chapters last week, that's my bad, and I hope this big chapter appeased you.**

 **Thank you all for reading, I hope you enjoyed. As always let me know if I've made a horrible grammer mistake or glaring inconsistencies, let me know what you thought of it, and have a good day or night or whenever you're read this.**


	5. Chapter 5-Noctibus

I've been walking with the pacified crested dinosaur for nearly an hour and the sun is now hanging low in the sky. For the most part, aside from my tripping over the spearhead, it's been pretty boring. The crested therapod has followed behind me, occasionally walking almost beside me, but it refuses to walk in front of me, keeping me in sight at all times. The herbivores keep their distance, noticing the carnivore from a good way off. It doesn't seem particularly happy about its presence being common knowledge to the other dinosaurs, but it still follows me and my bundles of food.

I turn my attention to my new broken spear. I sure as heck didn't make it, and I'm pretty sure that the dinosaur's didn't make it. That means there's somebody, or multiple somebodies, who are out here and alive, or at least were in the recent past. If that's true, maybe they can explain this bizarre place and help me get out of this organic hell, or at least help me to not die. Whoever it is they have to be pretty successful out here. This spear is surprisingly well made, and shows a good deal of wear on its head, suggesting this was used for a while with some degree of success. The handle is perfectly smooth, but obviously cut. I can't feel a single unevenness or ridge that comes from cutting wood by hand, which means whoever made it has to have some way to cut it in a single go, though not so advanced that they wouldn't use the primitive design. The crested dinosaur also seems to be agitated around it, which probably means he, or she, as I still don't know for sure, either recognizes it's a weapon or its encountered its owner, or both.

Taking my attention off the spear, I look ahead of us, only to double take. Peaking over the top of the next ridge is bunches of dark green leaves with thick woody branches holding them up. I shake my head and rub my eyes with the back of my hand, glad I didn't try it with my other hand, which is still covered in drying blood and would have been very unpleasant. Yet despite my actions, the trees still remained. I pick up my pace, hoping that I'm not just hallucinating from heat stroke or something equally bad or worse. I cross the top of the hill and see a practical wall of trees stretching off into the distance, and what appeared to be a river cutting through the middle of it.

I skid down the side of the hill, narrowly avoiding splattering mud and fallen leaves on my bundles of food by raising them up above my head. I stride through the trees that I want to say are acacia, but I have absolutely no idea in actuality. A loud bark and screeches from behind me betrays my dinosaur follower's less than graceful descent. I turn to see it get to its feet with a bashful shake and rub its face with its clawed hands. He, I'm assuming it's a he for now, spits. However it's not venom, just dirt and saliva. "You alright there buddy?" He tilts his head in confusion, clearly not understanding me. He barks again and flares up his frill, then retracts it, and repeats this several times until a dead leaf floats down from where it was stuck to his neck. He shakes his head once more and struts past me, shooting me a glare as if daring me to say anything about it. I snicker under my breath and follow after the grumpy therapod.

He stands at the edge of what I had assumed was a river bank and peers down over the edge. I walk up to stand next to him and he takes a few steps sideways to keep a few feet between us. It turns out the river is only a dried up river bed with only a trickle of water running through it. I debate what to do for a moment before jumping down to the bottom. It's probably eight feet deep from the highest part of the bank to the lowest dry ground in the riverbed. I set my two meat blocks on a nearly flat rock and kneel at the stream's edge. I scrub the dried dinosaur blood off my hand as best I can in the shallow water, glad to be rid of the disgusting mess.

From atop the river bank, the crested dinosaur paces back and forth, watching as I washed off. Every couple of passes he would step up to the very edge and hisses, then backs off and shakes his head. He repeats this several times before his eyes lock in on me. I watch as he takes several steps back, then turns and sprints off. I stand up, trying to see where he went when a ninety pound mass of teal scaled reptile rockets into my chest. I'm knocked onto my back and into the damp soil. I raise my head to see the face of the carnivore blinking owlishly at me a few inches away from my own. With a yelp, he springs off of me and darts a few feet away, his quills raised like the fur on the back of a dog's neck would. I sit up with a groan, adding another mental tally to my list of how many times I've fallen down and how many scrapes and scratches I've gotten in under two days. "That was really necessary? You couldn't just swallow your pride and jump down like I did you son of a half plucked turkey?" It gives a low growl and shifts it's weight back and forth on its feet, not taking his eyes off me, still expecting something supernatural to happen and to have to run for his life. I sit up all the way and rub the back of my head, which was starting to ache quite strongly by now. I wipe the mud out of my hair and upsettedly make a note to take about a dozen baths whenever I get back to civilization.

After ensuring my skull is intact and no pebbles are embedded in it, I get to my feet and set about picking up dry twigs and branches for a fire. My companion watches from atop a boulder, waiting until I'm not paying enough attention that he can snag one of my meat bundles, but I keep him in my line of sight at all times. He snorts in annoyance and curls up, staring bitterly at the meat he doesn't dare go after while I'm present, still unaware of what all I'm capable of but knowing I'm not happy with him.

I carefully construct a teepee of small sticks and twigs, leaving a gap in one side to put my kindling in. Over top of that, I build a larger teepee of thicker sticks with a piece of log leaning on one side. I gather up some grass fibers and and tiny twigs and form a kind of bowl shape with it. I set that down on a dry rock, then realize I have no way to light it. A glance down at my arm, remembering that I actually have a large shiny diamond shaped impact in my wrist. I had somehow actually forgotten that it was on me, but it gives me an idea. I angle my arm so the dimming sunlight catches off it and shines on the nest like you would do with a magnifying glass. I sit there holding perfectly still for a few minutes, staring and waiting and hoping for the little curl of smoke that heralds the start of a fire to rise up from it, but it never does. I lean back with a frown and look up at the darkening sky. There's not enough time of sunlight left for a second chance at it, so I'll have to find some other way to light it.

I idly smack two smooth stones from the riverbed together, debating what to do. One of the rocks chip and I look down to see that the inside of the stone is a ruddy orange-red color. Red orange rocks means there's iron ideposits n them, and iron and flint make sparks. I pick up the broken spear and strike it on the ore bearing stone. A lone spark fizzles off it, but it doesn't light the kindling lump. I take this as a good sign and begin rapidly striking them together, creating a flurry of tiny sparks. One ignites a tiny bit of fiber and I nearly throw the objects in my hands. Correction, I dropped the spear next to me, but I did throw the stone, which clattered against the boulder the crested dinosaur perched atop of. He hooted angrily and shifted his position, then spat a glob of venom at the offending stone.

I paid him no head and cupped my hands around the lighting plant fiber, then blew gently, watching as the glowing spark became a tiny flame, then a larger flame and began consuming it. I carefully tossed the flaming fibers inside the teepee and blew on it until the twigs and small sticks began to light and catch fire.

I grinned ear to ear as the tiny flame slowly became a crackling fire. Taking a glance at the sky, the sun was halfway through setting and my visibility was going down at an exponential rate. I scrambled to gather more wood and cut up more plant fiber before I couldn't see my hands in front of my face. I ended up with a large armful before the pitch blackness forced me back to my fire. When I returned, it was a crackling, roaring fire, considerably larger than I expected to be yielded from it. Now that I think about it though, it makes at least some sense. Bugs don't get huge because there's not enough oxygen in the air for their primitive spiracles to absorb to breath, and considering the size of the dragonflies, there has to be at least some more oxygen in the air. The fire needs oxygen to burn, and more oxygen means more fire.

My carnivorous partner keeps fair distance and a tiny trickle of water between him and the blaze. Understandably so, the fire is blazing hot, and animals, including people, are naturally afraid of fire, unless they're desensitized to it, and a wild dinosaur is certainly not. However I might know a quicker way of doing so that kills two birds with one stone, and if not, it still clears up one issue at least. I grab a bundle of meat and unbind the one with my trusty sharp rock impaled in it and shave off a slice. Then I sharpen one of the greener of my extra sticks and stab the slice onto one end. I hold it over the fire, not directly in the flames though; that would most definitely scorch the outside without actually cooking the inside. The meat crackles and sizzles and slowly starts turning a darker color. It smells really good, almost like bacon frying.

Once the outside starts to tinge with black I pull it off the fire after letting a little more melted fat drip off it. With my sharp rock, I cut into it, checking to be sure that it's done all the way through. The inside and out of the meat are now the same color and I resist eating it until it stops sizzling and popping. Manipulating the piece of perfectly cooked meat with the sharpened stick and my pointed stone clumsily, I eventually manage to take a bite. Considering its smell and likeness in appearance to pork bacon, I was seriously surprised when it tasted nothing at all like like it. Instead it has a flavor similar to poultry, maybe duck? Even though it's an odd flavor, it's still good, and the meat is gone in mere moments.

I quickly sharpen a second stick and slice two more pieces of the parasaur meat. Both are impaled on a sharp stick and held over the fire. It seems to take a long time to cook, though that's probably just because that's the only thing I'm focusing on, and time seems to slow to a crawl when you're waiting for it to pass. The sound fat dripping into the fire and sizzling is monotonous and repetitive, but nearly in time with the other, and I count along with it, nodding my head to the beat from boredom. I wait until like last time they start to blacken, then remove them.

Cooked meat in hand, I walk around the fire to where the crested dinosaur is hiding in the dark and set the cooked bit of meat on the ground, then step back. He keeps hiding from the fire for a few moments, but the scent of food and curiosity lure him in. He grabs the morsel in his jaws and swallows it. He lacks his lips and sniffs the air, honing in on my second piece. He lowers himself, as if deferring, and reaches for the meat, but I take several steps back towards the fire.

He stares at me with a betrayed look and jumps to his feet, hissing and hooting angrily, refusing to come forward and nearer the blaze. I refuse to move and we're locked in a stalemate, though I had the upper hand. I held the meat that he wanted, but stood near the fire that he wanted to avoid, while I wanted to get him over his instinctual fear of fire, with no drawbacks, as if I can't, that just means I get more meat to myself. I stand there, holding out the meat, while he paces back and forth, hooting at me angrily with what I'm sure would be curses if he could speak, and trying to figure out how to get the food without coming any closer. Slowly, I begin taking another step back, and he hoots and growls frantically, realizing I'm getting closer to the fire. Eventually I hit the breaking point and he darts out, grabs the meat from my hand, and runs back into the darkness. He glares at me while he eats the roasted meat grumpily, tearing it into smaller pieces and eating those.

Satisfied with how far I've gotten with him, I toss a few more branches onto my slowly dimming but still practically a miniature volcano of a fire. I cut off several more pieces of meat and sharpen three more sticks so I have a rotation of meat cooking. Every time I take off a piece, I put a new one on, and by the time I finish eating it, it's time to take the next one off. Every other one gets tossed to the carnivore in the dark, who takes them unseen and without complaint. I've shaved off about two thirds of the meat block by the time I'm full.

I clear a patch of sandy soil of rocks and lay down on it after I've put both chunks of meat closer to the fire. The sky above is a dark field of bright stars, none of which formed constellations I knew, not even the Big dipper, Orion's belt, or even Polaris was discernable. This place really is out there. I would have guessed the obvious and that I've been put back in time, but I know enough about dinosaurs and extinct animals that my crested friend, the giant dragonflies, and triceratops didn't live in the same time period. So that's out of the equation, and the spear also indicate there are people, or at least were, which I know didn't live with dinosaurs. This place is utterly bizarre, there's grass too, which I remember hearing somewhere didn't exist during the dinosaur ages. It's almost as if somebody just threw together creatures from different eras and places together just to see what would happen, and then as an afterthought tossed in some people too.

Suddenly, the crested dinosaur hoots and screeches in the darkness, then jumps into the sphere of light cast by my fire. I grab my spear and stand up in alarm. His frill is raised and he's making that gargling sort of sound, priming his projectile venom. I move around the fire, grabbing my sharp stone as well, fearing that the carno had woken and tracked us down. The crested therapod snapped his head sideways and spat, and a shriek from the darkness confirmed his hit. He pounced forwards into the darkness and further screeching and growls rang out. A tiny dinosaur, maybe only three feet long at most darts into the light. It scrambles and trips over itself in panic, then the crested therapod is upon it, engulfing it in its jaws and shaking it like a rag doll until its shrieks stop. It drops it roughly on the ground and noses it, making sure it was dead, then turned back to the darkness, hooting aggressively while priming another shot of venom. Confident that he could handle the situation for a few moments, I inspect the now dead dinosaur.

Like my guess at first glance, it's about two and a half feet long and clearly a therapod like my killer acquaintance. It's got a narrow pointed snout full of spiked teeth and large eyes, obviously suited for seeing in the dark. It has a crest of feathers on the back of its head and it's back is covered in once green downy feathers, now stained red. It was very birdlike in appearance, though the arms and long tail clearly show it's not one.

Two more of them run into the light, regard their fallen comrade, then pounced towards me. I smack one of them midair with my broken spear, knocking it sideways towards where the crested dinosaur is fending off three others. The other lands on my shoulder and sinks it's teeth into it. I yelp and bash it over the head with my sharpened stone. It squeals and loses its grip. In a moment of self preservation, I stab it with my spear and force it off myself. It runs off bleeding into the darkness, screaming and squealing its head off. I run over to the crested therapod who is being overwhelmed by the four smaller dinosaurs and kick one of them hard. It sails off through the air, shrieking in alarm and fear. I grab another one around the neck off him and fling it too.

Realizing I've taken care of two of them, the crested dinosaur rolls onto its back, pinning the other two to the ground. He rolls back over and sinks his teeth into one of the stunned birdlike dinosaurs and shakes it like he did the other, killing it in a similar manner to the first. The other takes an aggressive stance, then notices it's alone and facing me and the crested dino, and runs off at high speed into the dark after its surviving brethren. The crested dinosaur remains alert, his quills still raised and his frill still twitching for several moments before he's satisfied the smaller dinos are actually gone.

He flops down on his side, panting and licking his scratches and battle injuries clean. I rub my scratched and bite marked shoulder, wishing I could do the same. The dinosaur pauses in its administrations to grab one of the tiny dinosaur's corpses and tosses it over at me towards the fire. It hoots and gestures to the fire, then at me. I think I know what he wants. Using my sharp stone, I cut off it's back legs like one would a chicken and skin them, then awkwardly mount them on a sharpened stick and hold them over the fire.

Ten minutes later, both have been cooked and now remain as a pair of bones beside the resting dinosaur, and the second pair are nearly done cooking. I toss one to my reptilian partner and take a bite of mine, then toss it to him to as I pick stringy tendons from between my teeth. It seems that despite being chicken-like, the little dinosaurs aren't near as delicious and have far stringier meat, though the crested dinosaur doesn't seem to mind.

Content that we're safe and fed, I toss some more wood on the fire and lay down with my back against the wall of the riverbank. The crested dinosaur is laying within the fire light, looking uncomfortable, but glad to be out of the dark. Everything has calmed down and the only sound is the crackle of the fire and the sound of crickets. Even the air has stilled, only an occasional breath of wind traveling down the miniature canyon of the riverbed.

By all means I should be falling asleep. It's been a long and stressful day, running for my life and avoiding carnivores and fighting tiny dinosaurs. I'm exhausted, yet I feel wide awake. To occupy myself, I take my sharp rock and begin sharpening my half spear. The moon rises slowly and I watch as it moves across the starry field of the sky. I begin to get frustrated as the moon is nearly directly overhead and I've still not fallen asleep. My spear is as sharp as it's going to get and my hands ache. My battle injured companion has been asleep for some time, and is snoring away.

In an attempt to force myself asleep, I start counting all the stars I can see. I'm at either fifty five or fifty eight by the time I have trouble keeping my eyes open. I keep counting, then I'm forced to recount as I have no idea what I have and haven't. At some point I finally fall asleep and enter the soothing darkness of unconsciousness.

 **A/N:**

 **Well, what do you guys think? In the spirit of Halloween or All Hallows Eve or the Day of the Dead depending who you are and where you're from, I'm going to attempt to upload two chapters this week. Now life can be a major bummer and time waster, so in the unfortunate circumstance that I am unable to, expect a longer than average chapter next week.**

 **This was originally going to be a part of the last chapter, but because the last was already so long, I split it apart, so I apologize if this one was rather boring. I tried to add some interest to the chapter with the compy attack, but I did try to give the chapter a more relaxing or at least not so adventurous action vibe.**

 **Also, the dilo will be getting a name in one of the next couple chapters aside from "the crested dinosaur" and "killer acquaintance" and any other monikers I've given it so far.**

 **As always let me know if I've made any major mistakes grammer wise, let me know what you thought of the chapter, and have a good day or night or whenever you're reading this.**


	6. Chapter 6-Colloquor

The coals of a dead fire clung to life, glittering rubies slowly becoming obscured in charcoal colored ash. However their light was no longer needed as early morning sun was replacing it as a source of light. The air was still, but not muggy or humid yet. It was rather cool without being chilly, and was quite warm in the sun.

A lone dilo sat perched on a rock, which had a shaft of light beaming down on it almost majestically. Its orange frill and crests shone in the morning light, and the red patches of it's face were cast a bright crimson. Its tail and frill twitched occasionally, but otherwise it remained motionless until it turned it's head to look behind it, and snorted when it saw that its partner was still sleeping. It sighed in a manner only a dinosaur could and turned back, resuming its basking in the sun.

Several minutes later, the dilo jumped to it's feet, wheeling around at what it was sure was the sound of its partner awakening, but was sorely disappointed. He had merely rolled over and grumbled in his sleep, then went back to sleeping as soundly as before. The dilo hopped off its rock and walked the few feet to him, still keeping a little distance between himself and the burning, crackling coals.

He nudged the the sleeping form of the questionably supernatural mammal, then jumped back, but he didn't respond or even shift in his slumber. Getting more frustrated and impatient, the dilo hooted and growled loudly, and received a few upset groans and a lazily slap to the nose that was more of an open handed tap than anything. The dilo shook his head indignantly and rubbed his nose with his claws. Once he was sure he hadn't taken any injury or had anything wiped on his face, he grabbed the loose white hide around its waist with its teeth and worried it, leaving large punctures and gashes in it.

I woke to the feeling of something pulling on my side and looked down to see a dinosaur pulling on my shorts with vicious growls of aggression. I scream in panic and kick out with my legs and flail my arms. I shove it off of me and grab my half spear. I prepare to throw my weapon before realizing its the crested dinosaur, who was priming to spit its venom to defend itself from me. I drop the spear and hold up my hands palms out, showing it there's no need for him to spit his deadly payload at me. He barks and shakes his head, scowling at me.

He struts over to the trickle of water and takes a drink, then threshes his head back and forth like a bird in a birdbath, washing any traces of blood or bits of meat from his lips or between his teeth. Taking his example, I go upstream from him and do the same, though in a less birdlike fashion. While I'm at it, I splash some of the cold water on myself to wash of the dirt that had stuck itself to me in my sleep. I shivered and flinched at how cold it was, not expecting the how frigid it was. In reality it was probably rather warm but considerably colder than the air which made it seem even cooler in contrast.

Feeling hungry, I hacked up a small patch of particularly tall grass and threw it on the hot coals, which promptly roared to life into a proud albeit small fire. I tossed the last of my branches onto it as well to get the sweltering heat I needed to cook. Having already cooked the meat of value from the tiny dinosaurs, I shaved off a good deal of thin slices from the mostly eaten parasaur chunk.

Deciding to try something different, I looked around for a flattish rock and eventually found one in the form of a large slab of what I was pretty sure was slate. I rinsed all the sand and mud off for in the water as my crested companion sat waiting impatiently for me to cook his meal, and stop fiddling with rocks and mud. Once I was finished there, I lay the strips out on the face of it. Then, I carefully set it halfway on the fire, the strips of raw meat on the half of the stone over the coals.

The meat sizzles from the intense heat and gives off an even better smell than when I had cooked them over the open flame. The crested therapod sniffs the air and perks up, licking his lips hungrily in anticipation. He fidgets, watching as I flip over each piece with my sharp stone. The fat is melting out of it, giving an appearance quite like that of pork bacon. One of the pieces starts becoming crispy and I drag the stone off the fire carefully. The dino nearly pounces on the stone, but refrained from it with how a misplaced jump could land him directly in a pile of burning coals and twigs.

I waited for then to cool to the point where I was able to handle them without searing my fingers on contact. In that time, the impatient dinosaur has nearly had a fit waiting for it to be finished and was now laying in defeat on the ground groaning. I pass one of strips of parasaur bacon and it lands next to his nose. He snorts and whips his head back and forth, then notices the piece of food before him. He chirps and grabs it in his teeth. He swallows it whole, throwing his head back in the familiar birdlike manner. He pants and licks his lips hungrily, hooting at me, obviously wanting more.

I eat one myself, and I'm amazed at how much better it tastes. Eating healthy is for losers with no sense of taste. Frying stuff in grease is way better. My partner roars loudly, interrupting my moment of enjoyment. I scoop up roughly half of them and toss them to him. He's about to dig into it before realizing I've lumped several pieces together. He painstakingly pulls apart every slice and eats each one individually, while I cram several pieces in my mouth at once to eat more of it faster.

The picky dinosaur seems to scoff at my lack of effort to enjoy and savor the food, then goes back to pulling apart his lump with even more slow and deliberate movements. I chuckle to myself through a mouthful of the delicious bacon like meat. Rather bizarrely, though predictably, despite having a texture and appearance nearly identical to pork, it still tastes like poultry. It's odd to say the least. The flavor not matching my subconscious expectation even nearly is disconcerting and utterly bizarre. It's like biting into an apple, but instead of tasting like apple, it tastes like a pear or cheese or something completely different from what you know or think it should taste like.

I wash the grease off my hands and start piling handfuls of the sandy riverbed mud on my fire, not wanting to cause a forest fire by accident and roast myself later. The fire adamantly clings to life, but after a decent layer of silt is covering the entire thing, it finally goes out. A feww fading plumes of smoke rising from gaps and shallower parts of the mud layer are all that's left to attest to the once proud blaze.

After shoveling the mud and sand with my bare hands, I realize I've just completely undone the effect of washing my hands a few minutes before. I wash my hands off once more, and by the time I do that, the picky saurian has finally finished his breakfast and picked up all the scraps and eaten those too. He rubs his snout with his claws, attempting to remove the grease but only succeeding in transferring more from his hands to his face. He growls in frustration and tries it several more times, failing every time to actually remove the offending liquid fat. Finally he tries rubbing it off on the ground, which does remove a little, but replaces it with twice as much sand.

He screeches and shakes his head like a dog, then runs over and dunks his head in the water. He comes up sputtering and coughing, but his face is clear of all the debris and he looks glad of it despite having half drowned himself. He sneezes and watery snot comes out of his nose, lodging itself on his snout. I stick my tongue out at the grossness and he seems to share the sentiments. He snaps his head sideways and the snot goes flying, landing with an audible splat.

I bust out laughing, somehow finding a good deal of humor in it, though exhaustion and being half awake are the source of true comedy. It's far easier to laugh and to be humorous when you're barely managing to keep yourself awake The dino growls and hoots at me, flaring up his frill at my laughter. "Oh hush, you. I'm stressed and bruised up and half naked in the wilderness. Let me have this you indignant reptile."

In response he simply growls again and huffs, then turns and climbs onto the boulder he had been perched on earlier that morning. He sits with his back to me and grumbles to himself while preening his quills. I roll my eyes as the proud reptile pouts and pick up my untouched meat block and jabbed my sharp stone into it. I grab my half spear in my left, then think it over and switch it to my right hand and the bundled meat to my left hand.

Keeping on with my travels I set off down the riverbed, walking past the grumpy teal carnivore, who took notice a few moments later and follows after me. After walking for maybe ten minutes I realize that the twenty five foot wide stretch that we slept in was actually narrow compared to the rest of it. Currently we're walking in maybe double that, albeit the banks are a much gentler slope than the near ninety degree bank of the less wide part.

A pair of the tiny species of dinosaur from the night before are drinking from the shallow stream that runs through the much larger riverbed. They watch curiously and unafraid as we approach, only scattering when my short tempered acquaintance roared at them and opened his frill. Among the trees , some bizarre animals I didn't recognize crunched through the underbrush and browsed from the scrubby ferns.

They resembled massive furry turtles with long tails ending in mace like tips. With their tails included, they were probably almost eighteen feet long and the top of their shelled back were about six feet high. The crested dino looked wary of them and walked on the other side of me, and judging by the wicked spikes on its tail and its shoulders, they were deserving of his fear. Considering that the small theraopd had faced a carno, succeeded at not dying, then came back for round two, it would probably be wise wise to leave the currently docile animals we walked past them, they glanced in our direction and grunted, but otherwise ignored us entirely.

A few parasaurs foraged among the trees and brush or lay in the sandy mud, either enjoying the coolness of the mud or the warmth of the morning sun, I couldn't really tell which. They all turned to watch us as we walked by, but like the armadillo turtle creatures they didn't pay us much attention. Looking more closely at a few of them, I saw that some of them bore a good deal of scars. Most were just slightly .discolored spots or a differently textured bit of scales, but a few even had large shallow grooves running down their ribs or thighs or shoulders. They weren't very noticeable unless you looked for them, but there were at least five individuals that I could discern some sort of blemish on. The placement of some of the scars on one of them made it quite obvious that it had survived a run in with a carno, its teeth marks memorialized on the hadrosaurs hide.

Said hadrosaur was a dull grayish color, with a short magenta sail and beak, and light green mottling on its stomach. She would rear up on her back legs and observe the area and let out a honk, and all the others in the area would respond with a honk in return. She would seem to nod to herself, glance over at us to make sure we weren't up to anything malicious, then feed on the grass and shrubbery that grew thick on the edge of the riverbed for a minute or two, then repeat the process. She must be a matriarch or some other kind of herd leader.

Eventually we left the herd behind, who meandered at a slower pace than me and the carnivore trekked. A few of the more curious pterosaurs followed us for a while but eventually got bored with us and flew back to the parasaur herd. Eventually I got bored of this and decided to strike up conversation with my prehistoric partner. "Hey, buddy." He looks up at me in what wasn't quite surprise and gives a half bark. "Are you a boy, or are you a girl? Cause I don't know how to check a reptile and don't really want to."

He tilts his head and hoots a few times. "Alright then, how about how old are you?"

Obviously confused at what I'm saying, which probably sounds like gibberish to him, he hesitatingly growls.

"OK, that was rude, I get it. Sorry for asking. How about what's up with this place? How did I get here? You'd probably know. I met you first out here." He looks up at me silently, giving one of his glares. I stared back at him and we both stop walking without realizing. After several seconds he blinks and shakes his head, causing me to do the same. We both start walking again after realizing we weren't.

"Wow. That was... trippy. It's like you just glared so hard you saw my soul, that was just... seriously trippy." He seemed to think the same, shaking his head several times and growling. "You know, I just realized you don't have a name. Or do you?" He shakes his head again, and I take this as no though it probably didn't mean anything.

"Well then, let's see. You've got some really cool red colors, so how about... Red hand?" The dino snorts and rubs his snout. "Yeah, yeah, you're right, that's pretty dumb. Grump then, how do you like that?" He ignores me and continues rubbing it's snout, having just accepted that his partner was being vocal for some reason today. "Fine. Spitz maybe? Heh. Killer? You like that? I do." He continues ignoring me and has stopped rubbing his snout, now sniffing and observing our new surroundings. We apparently walked out of the riverbed at some point and are now tramping through a sparse stand of trees. A few of them are really tall pines, nearly twice as tall as the other trees. Small bushes that resembled actual bushes and not palm trees grew among them, though not thickly enough to hinder our movements.

The yet to be named therapod travelling with me starts looking around and growling under his breath. "What, do you not like it?" He snaps his head towards me and barks gruffly. I grip my spear a little tighter, noting how he's behaving more like the aggressive predator and less like the self important, prideful, and picky companion. He doesn't stop moving forward however, so I assume that whatever making him so on edge isn't in the immediate vicinity.

We must have entered another carnivore's territory or something. It would stand to reason that there are bigger things out here than just the carnotaurus from the plains . It would also stand to reason that there are other carnos out and about for a breeding population, as there's no way a lone individual can keep an entire ecosystem in check, let alone a species intact. Or maybe not, and that's the last living carno in existence. I doubt that though.

We continue forward, my partner leading with a cautious and combat ready stance. I part the bushes with my spear, idly noting that carrying around a bundle of raw meat likely doesn't improve our chances of going unnoticed. Despite the underbrush being scarce, our sight range is limited, the tree trunks themselves lining up and obscuring our view. Oddly enough, underneath the underlying paranoia and fear, I don't get that other sensory premonition of being watched. This place seems pretty still and quiet, almost unnaturally so. The calls and chirps of dinosaurs in the distance being barely whispers in the wind.

A shadow passes over us briefly and we both crouch down immediately and look to the sky. Another pterosaur flew high overhead, though this one was easily and obviously far larger than the ones we've seen so far. It lacked a long tail, but it seemed to have a crest on the back of its head. A pteranodon perhaps? My companion disregards it as soon as it disappears behind tree branches and keeps moving forward. I remain crouched for a moment, watching for it to pass overhead again.

The crested carnivore has gotten maybe fifteen feet before hooting at me, looking upset at me for dallying. I walk over to him and stand next to him, waiting for him to take the lead once more. He simply stands there, peering through the trees and occasionally glancing at me expectantly. "What?" He turns to me and hoots, then keeps looking around and sniffing the ground. I sigh and step around him, then keep going. He's probably upset at me and doesn't trust that I won't lag behind again. From somewhere behind me, he barks, and I turn back to look at him. "I'm walking pal, you can stop nagging me already."

I take another step forward and suddenly my world erupts into a blur of blue, green, and brown. I yelp and drop what's in my hands as I'm suddenly upside-down or sideways or some combination of the two. I hear the crested dinosaur shriek in alarm and I'm pretty sure I did too. I thrash against whatever has grabbed me before I realize I'm in a net. A net as in a net woven by hand by people. For most of this trek, I've been looking for people out here. I hadn't considered the fact that said person might be hostile and not so welcoming of a shirtless kid who apparently washed up on the shore of dinosaur land out of the blue. However I am not a sitting duck in here, I can cut myself free, because I am an advanced intellect with the advanced power of a sharp rock and broken spear. Both of which I just realized are laying on the ground below. So I am a sitting duck. Wonderful.

My therapod friend is down below, looking up at me with a glare that put even the soul piercing one to shame with the sheer level of unamusement packed behind it. I take a deep breath and reposition myself so I'm not face down and more comfortable. If I'm going to be hanging twenty feet off the ground for who knows how long, I might as well be somewhat comfortable. Down below, the crested dinosaur sniffs at my dropped chunk of parasaur meat before deciding against eating it, knowing I can make it much better with fire, one of my few redeeming qualities in his eyes.

I sit quietly in the net for several minutes, the carnivore pacing around and nosing through the bushes, occasionally letting out huff of annoyance. The rope, while being wove from rough fibers, was rather soft, or at least not rough and abrasive like twine. I shift my weight to one side and the net shifts too, but only slightly. I shift it the other way and the net swings about a foot in the other direction. I swing like that for maybe a minute or two before I slow to a stop. "Well this sucks." The dinosaur hoots down below as if to say "it's your own fault," and I agree with his implied statement. He stopped because he knew there was a trap ahead. I walked past him and directly into the trap, even after he tried to warn me. I feel so dumb right now.

I sit there for what feels like ages, and I'm pretty sure I fell asleep at some point. The sun moved from being about a third of the way up the sky to about directly overhead. Plus the crested dino has built an entire nest about the size of a dog bed out of grass and soft leaves and is currently curled up on it, sleeping soundly, reminding me of a dog or large housecat. A lone dragonfly buzzed by, pausing to look at me and to see if I was alive, but a couple wriggles convinced it I was still plenty alive and it zoomed off.

From the not so far distance a loud howl rings out, distinctly different from the saurian roars and hoots I've been hearing so far. The crested dinosaur jolts awake and is on his feet in instants, his frill flared and his venomous spit priming. He wheels around in circles directly below me, searching for the source. He's twitchy and jumpy, though he's not panicking, which is better than how I would deal with it if I wasn't hanging twenty feet from the ground.

From the brush, the biggest wolf I had ever seen burst into view. It was maybe a half a foot foot longer than the dino with its fluffy tail included and far, far bulkier with a broad muzzle, broader than any I had ever seen on a wolf before. My companion immediately launches a glob of thick venom and the titanic wolf flinches backwards. It hits the canine in the shoulder as a second shot is being primed. The wolf however is quicker to attack and lunges forward, knocking the dino off his feet and pinning him down with his jaws poised to bite in a single fluid movement. What actually frightens me though, more so than a giant wolf poised to rip apart my only friend out here, is the two figures atop it's back, staring up at me with a predatory gaze.

 **A/N:**

 **MUHAHAHA! I did it! Two chapters in a week! With a cliff hanger! I honestly don't know if I'm either a cruel or a kind person right now. We got some dialog in this chapter aside from his sparce single lines so far.**

 **I don't have much else to write here, so I hope you enjoyed the chapter, let me know what you thought of it and any horrible grammar errors, and have a great day, night, or whenever you're readings this. Or don't, it's entirely up to you and I can't tell you what to do.**

 **Oh and one last thing, _Grimlock1922,_ your review actually cemented the mount that the two unknowns rode up on. It was a toss up between the dire wolf, the anky, and a raptor until the very end and you helped me decide. Thanks a bunch for that.**


	7. Chapter 7-Conventus

I stared down from from my hanging place in the net, and the two armored figures stared up at me. One was considerably taller, at least a foot, and both wore a ruddy colored plate armor. The shorter's armor was splashed with blue, green, and scarlet, while the taller had only a horizontal black stripe across the face of their helmet. The shorter tilted her head, then jumped down off the back of the wolf, patting it's side. The wolf stopped growling and baring its teeth, though it didn't release the playing dead dinosaur, keeping him pinned against the ground. The taller one noticed and looked over to see that the shorter had dismounted and was walking towards me.

They groaned and probably rolled their eyes, though I couldn't quite see for proof. The tall one dismounts and grabs the shorter's shoulder. They say something to them, probably in a whisper as I couldn't hear. The shorter one gestures to the crested dinosaur, then up at me. The taller facepalms, creating a loud clicking noise almost like a wood block hitting another as their gauntlet connected with their helmet. They put their hands on their hips and look up at me. They shake their head and suddenly pull out a bow and notch an arrow.

I blink in surprise. They weren't holding it, and it wasn't on their back, or lashed to their hip. It just suddenly appeared from seemingly empty space. I blinked again in surprise and panic as I realize they've aimed it directly at me. I thrash around, trying to put myself in a less compromising position. "Don't shoot! Don't shoot! Please don't kill me, just cut me down and I swear I will run as far away from here as I can." I struggle some more before adding, "At least let him go, he didn't do anything, please."

They don't respond, the shorter looking between me and the taller worriedly. The taller shakes their head, then speaks. "Why should we believe that? How do we know you or your dilo aren't going to run off and get the rest of your tribe and come back after us?" I blink in surprise, honestly not expecting them to respond, or expecting the voice to be female and so hostile. I had kind of expected they would either just silently let me down and watch as I ran off, or shoot me without a word and that would be that. A moment of recovery later and I answer.

"I swear I don't have a tribe or anyone else out here, and I don't even know what a dilo _is_!" She lowers her bow, though not for suddenly having a change of heart. She gives me a look that from the tiny portion of her face I can see seems to say, _how dumb could you possibly be?_ I take some offense, going over what I'd said and not finding anything in it that's particularly unintelligent.

"Nobody with half a brain wanders the Redwood forest alone and unarmed, and your tame right there under the dire wolf is a dilo you numbskull. Haven't you accessed it's inventory? It's name is pretty apparent in it." Okay, armor lady is seriously starting to get on my nerves despite me being in serious danger for my life.

"What the heck are you talking about? I didn't even know there was a redwood forest, I've been wandering around for two days trying to find somebody out here in this hellscape! And what do you mean access his inventory?" She gives me another look, though I can't quite tell whether it's another how stupid can you be look, or of simple confusion. The shorter speaks up now.

"Mister, did you wake up on a beach two days ago with a headache and a diamond in your arm?" Both me and the taller turn to look at them, who is also apparently a girl judging from their voice.

"Moth, I told you to stay quiet!" The taller hisses in frustration. The shorter, apparently named Moth, shrinks back but still stares at me, waiting for an answer. I nod.

"Yeah, I did. How did you know that? Have you been stalking me? Did you bring me out here?!" She shakes her head rapidly and holds up her arms defensively. I realized I had been shouting and winced, feeling a little bad for yelling at her unjustified.

"No no no no, I haven't done anything. That's how everbody on the island who wasn't born here gets here, including me and Shannon. So welcome to the Ark I guess mister." I sit there, hanging in the air, trying to comprehend what I've been told and come up with a response more intelligent than 'huh?'. While I do that, the taller, apparently 'Shannon', begrudgingly changes her aim and pulls back her arrow.

She launches it and streams through the air, hitting its mark with a thump and the sound of rope snapping. I panic and try to steady myself as the net containing myself lurches and begins descending at a rapid rate, not quite what I would be going if I was simply falling, but still considerably faster than I would have liked. I hit the ground with a loud thud that I'm pretty sure was mostly my skull striking hard soil. I either groaned or yelped, possibly both, and immediately sit up and clutch my head with my hands. "You had to drop me? You couldn't like, slowly lower me down or something?"

Shannon shrugs. "Probably. You still tresspassed on our hunting grounds." She gestures with her foot to the half forgotten meat block that my crested friend, who is apparently a dilo, had stashed in his makeshift nest. I get to my feet and brush the dirt off myself while rubbing the back of my head.

"I didn't hunt anything. I stole that from a carnotaurus kill. So if you want to go after somebody go after him." Both of them look at me in surprise and disbelief. They stare at me for several moments, making me uncomfortable and wondering what I said wrong or wierd. "What?"

"You stole a kill from a carno? On foot? How?" Moth asks

"Well, that idiot," I gesture to my pinned down partner, "apparently tried to steal from it and didn't do too well. So while the carno was chasing him, I snuck over to its kill and drugged a piece of it with those dark blue knock out berries. The carnotaurus came back and ate it, threw a little temper tantrum because he couldn't catch the dilo, then passed out. I cut some meat off the carcass and booked it out of there with the dilo before the carno woke up." They both looked rather impressed. "Also can you let him go, your wolf is giving him some pretty worrying looks." Moth nods and whistles loudly.

The wolf turns to look at her, then steps off of the dino. He remains motionless for a few moments later, still laying on the ground limply. Moth and Shannon look confused but I know what he's doing. He's playing dead and waiting until they let their guard down to bolt. The wolf itself tilts its head and bends down to sniff at it, when he suddenly springs to his feet with a loud screech and fully opens his frill. The wolf lurches backwards in surprise and both Moth and Shannon flinch too. The dilo turns tail and runs into the brush hooting.

I sigh and roll my eyes, then grab the meat bundle from the ground. I cut off a piece and toss it into the brush. A moment later and the piece of meat is tossed back with an indignant screech. He walks back into the clearing, glaring at me for daring to offer an uncooked piece of food to him. I raise my hands palms out and he huffs at my insolence, then walks over to me and nudges me so I'm standing between the others and his makeshift nest, then lays back down in it. Moth giggles quietly at the dilo, who glares daggers at her.

"How did you teach it to do that?" Shannon asks rather abruptly.

"Do what? Glare like that? He already did that when I met him." She groans and attempts to rub her temples, only to realize she can't do so through the helmet.

"No you numbskull, to play dead like that. I've never seen a dilo do that before."

I think it over for a moment before shrugging and grabbing my half spear off the ground. "He came with that too. I didn't teach him anything except that cooking food makes it taste better. Now he won't eat it raw. Guess I got a deluxe dino and broke it. Neat." I inspect the tip of my spear, rubbing the dirt off of it.

"Seriously? How long ago did you tame it?" This time I give her a look like the ones she's been giving me.

"I got here two days ago, which makes this is the third day I've been out here. He tried to eat me the first day, and he started travelling with me yesterday. So I guess I tamed him yesterday. Wow, it feels like I've been out here a lot longer." She nods before asking her next question.

"How did you knock him out? Did you drug it like the carno or did you use a club?"

"Why would I have knocked him out?" I gave her a puzzled look, and she returns a similar one to me.

"You have to knock out most dinosaurs then feed them while they're unconscious, dilophosaurus included. So how did you knock him out to tame him?"

"I never knocked him out. I fought him on the first day and beat him, then he ran off. Yesterday he killed one of those ostrich looking things and I kinda drove him off the kill. Then later that day I drugged the carno and stole some of its kill. He saw that I knocked out the carno and panicked. I gave him some meat, then he started following me around. Then last night a gang of tiny dinosaurs attacked us and we fought them off together. After I got caught in your little trap he didn't just run off so I guess he's pretty loyal."

She looked surprised and Moth probably would have too if she hadn't gotten bored of the conversation and started playing with the massive dire wolf a few minutes ago. The wolf was huge and knocked her around quite a bit while doing so, but it was obviously being gentle with her and the armor she wore prevented any accidental nips or scratches. She tried to wrap her arms around its neck to hug it, but her arms weren't near long enough to reach all the way around. It was quite cute, watching the huge canine playing with the tiny human like he was a puppy; it even rolled onto its back to allow her to rub its stomach.

Shannon abruptly raised her arm to look at her wrist, then pushed me aside to look at the dilo. He growled and shifted his position but didn't stand. However, I heard the telltale gurgle of priming venom, and apparently Shannon did too and kept a decent distance. She stares at him for a moment before blinking in surprise. She turns over her shoulder and calls out. "Moth, come over here."

Moth looks up from where she had been rubbing the bull sized wolf's stomach. She gave him a couple pats then ran over to her other companion. The wolf lay there for a moment, then realized she had stopped petting him and rolled back over with a disappointed rumble.

"Can you check his dilo for me and tell me what it reads? I don't think mine is reading right." Moth nods and hold up her wrist with the now glowing diamond shaped implant in it. She stares at the dilo for a moment as well, then speaks as if she's reading a script.

"Wild Male Dilo, gender: male. Huh, I've always wondered why it says their gender twice."

"I dont know but are you sure it says its wild?" Moth gives her an offended look.

"Yes I'm sure. I can read by myself."

"Why is a wild dilo following you around and not trying to rip you to pieces? Wait a minute, Moth, I think this is _the_ dilo." She stresses the 'the' in her sentence as if its context didnt make it seem important enough.

"The one who chased out all the other dilos off the east beach or that one who stole your boot?"

"The first one. We recognized him because he looked all gross and bloody all the time. He's got all that red on his face and his hands and his quills are red too. I really think this is him. How did you not get eaten alive by this god forsaken dinosaur and how is it not trying to do that right now?" Her last sentence is aimed at me rather than the younger girl and I'm caught off guard.

"I uhh, have honestly no idea. I kicked his butt, shared some food with him and he saw me knock out a carno. I think he's trying to make a truce to save his skin. A kind of I help him, he helps me, I don't kill him, he doesn't kill me sort of thing. And why is he cursed or whatever?"

"That dilo has killed two people, that me and Moth know of, on separate occasions. We found both of their bodies on the beach with their throats ripped our and dilo venom all over their face. Neither seemed to have actually hurt him, so how did he not kill you, and why hasn't he? He's a maneater." I'm shocked by this and look wide eyed down at my companion.

I have basically been living with a murderer. But I also pinned and beat said murderer in a kind of fair fight. I thought I was in serious danger when I saw him kill the ostrich creature, now I know that I'm apparently one of the luckiest men alive. I can't imagine how I would have survived if he attacked me yesterday morning or at the carno's kill. I stared down at the dilo, who stared back with his reptilian eyes, giving me that now familiar glare.

"I... well... I don't know how to respond to that. I guess I'll have to keep feeding him well then and hope for the best huh? I've already been traveling around with him since yesterday afternoon and he isn't any less of the bratty and proud dinosaur now than he was then. If anything, that just makes him even cooler than before." He hoots at me, almost as if he was deigning to thank me for the compliment. Moth giggles again while Shannon rolls her eyes.

"You do know you could just tame him the normal way. A quick knock out, stuff some meat in his inventory, and next thing you know he's bound to you and won't turn on you if he gets bored or hungry or cranky." I shrug and check my spear tip again, having nothing better to do with my idle hands.

"He's already loyal to me and all. I don't really need to. If he gets knocked unconscious at some point I probably will, but what exactly do you mean by inventory?" Shannon stares at me for a moment to see if I'm kidding, then face palms when she sees I'm not.

"Just when I was starting to think you weren't an idiot. Your inventory. Tou access it with your implant. Everything out here has one, people and dinos alike. What did you think we were doing when we looked at our wrists and at the dilo?"

"I had no idea what you were doing and I still don't know what you're talking about. My implant hasn't done anything, like at all since I've got here." She looks at me with disbelief and raises her own implant up to her face again. She looks at me, though it's more like she's trying to look through me than actually at me.

"What the hell? You don't have a marker. Have you been wandering around here doing everything by hand without your implant?" I nod slowly, not understanding what she was getting at. "What are you? The luckiest man alive or something?" I shrug again, which is probably becoming my most used gesture in this conversation.

"People have survived for hundreds, if not thousands of years without modern technology. Rome was one of, if not the most successful empire in history, and it was majorly pre-modern. I guess that makes me Rome." She doesn't say anything for a moment before sighing and muttering.

"Why do we always get the idiots and bad poets?" I frown and nearly make a snarky come back, but decide against it as she grabs my wrist and starts fiddling with the implant in it. She compares it to hers and they're identical, no nicks, scuffs, scratches, or smudges apparent on either. She raises hers up to her face and it glows like it did before. Then she forcibly raises mine up to my own face, but nothing happens. Her helmet hides most of her face, though it's apparent that she's frustrated and runs her fingers over its surface and abruptly a quiet click resounds from under her digits. Her eyes widen slightly and she raises my arm up to my face as I'm beginning to get uncomfortable with how close she was standing. A bright light suddenly shines in my eyes from the diamond implant and the world disappears.

I shout in surprise and jerk backwards. I stumble backwards and nearly trip over the red handed dilo's tail, though he whipped it out of the way at the last moment with a hoot of alarm. I do however trip on the stone I forgotten about. My skull connects with the ground once more and I respond very similarly as to how I did when I fell from the net. My hands clutch my head and I screw my eyes shut with a groan. Through gritted teeth I ask, "What, was _that_?"

Shannon doesn't respond as she too busy laughing along with Moth. The dilo huffs at my clumsiness and noses at the meat block before grabbing it with his teeth and putting it back into his nest. Shannon, after getting over her fit of laughter, answers my question. " _That_ , was your inventory. Everybody, and everything, on the island has one of them like I said before. Apparently you weren't curious enough about the thing wedged in your wrist to actually activate the thing."

She offers me a hand to help me up but I wave her off, standing without any assistance needed. I rub the back off my head to remove the ache and brush a dusting of pine needles and dirt off my back. I look at my implant, which is now a more flush red, having been noticeably a little duller before. "So do I just raise it up to my face then?"

"Yeah, you just kind of have to look directly at it and be within a certain range, so just raising your arm's the easiest way. It's pretty simple and self explanatory when you're inside it." Shannon explains and Mother nods in conformation before going back over to the dire wolf, who looked quite pleased about it.

I take a deep breath and raise my arm up to my face again. The bright light, which is oddly tinted blue despite the reddish glassy ring on the implant, shines into my eyes again, and I resist the urge to flinch. A second later and a blue screen of sorts replaces the world. There's a large rectangular box shape fillled with smaller consecutive cubes that takes up most of the left half of the screen, with a much smaller one similar to it beneath. The right is dominated by what appears to be a 3D model of myself, or at least 3D image. It's detailed even to the minute, showing every nick and small bruise on my skin and even the newly added teeth marks on my shorts. I note that I have dark brown hair and a small cleft in my chin. Though both of these seem readily apparent to me, if you had asked what I looked like before now I feel like I couldn't have told you anything other than I was a guy and light skinned. I think I look German, but I'm not entirely sure as my memory isn't serving me very well.

On the farthest right of the screen there's a list of values, with 'day', 'time', and '°[C]', grouped together. Day is obviously how long I've been here, with a three next to it. Time is probably the time of day, reading 13:08 I recognize it as military time, making it one 'o eight in the afternoon. I don't realize what the 'C' in parenthesis means immediately, before realizing it's temperature in Celsius. I don't really know how Celsius converts to Fahrenheit exactly, but it reads nineteen degrees. Below it, separated by a blue bar, lists: health, oxygen, food, water, weight, melee damage, movement speed, fortitude, crafting speed, and torpor. Health reads 92 out of 100, food is 62 percent of 100, water is 51 percent of 100, weight is 0 percent of 100, and melee damage, movement speed, and crafting speed are 100 percent, while fortitude and torpor are both zero. It's almost like a video game, and with a simple name like inventory, this is really starting to feel like one.

I lower my arm and blink as the world returns to normal, the blue screen fading quickly from my vision. The world was back to normal and I could see again. Shannon stood there, her arms crossed, the dilo still lay in his nest, and Moth was sitting up against a tree with the dire wolf attempting to sit on her lap. "Well that was... wierd."

"Tch. Congrats, you can now do what everyone else can do and usually can do from the first day."

I groaned and waved my hand at her."Thanks for ruining the moment."

She grinned beneath her mask and answered simply."You're welcome." She straightened herself up and grabbed the used net from the ground, coiling the rope it hung from around her hand. Then she walked over to the dire wolf and Moth, who both lifted their heads to look up at her. "Come on, its time to head out. We have two more traps to check and one to fix." Moth nodded and patted the wolf's neck. He stood with a groan and allowed the two girls to climb onto his back, Shannon in the front, to steer I suppose, and Moth hanging on behind, her arms wrapped around Shannon's midsection. Shannon pressed her heels into the wolf's sides, not hard, but enough to put pressure, and the great mass of toned muscle that was the dire wolf started forward. He was maybe fifteen feet away when Shannon abruptly turned and tossed the in need of repair net at me and shouted back at me, "You better hurry if you don't wanna be left behind out here!" I catch the mostly coiled net awkwardly, most of it hitting me directly in the face.

It registers with me what she said a few seconds later and the fact that I'm not currently following them. I snatched up my half spear that I had dropped when assaulted with the net and grab the bundle of meat out from under my dilo companion. He hoots in surprise and his frill springs open. He prepares to give me a vocal lashing for the sharp movement so near his face, only to realize that I'm already sprinting through the undergrowth half blinded by a surprisingly heavy net. He stands quickly and moves to follow, but hesitates and looks between my quickly disappearing form and his nest. Decidedly, he grabs a pile of the fibers in his claws and takes off after me, hooting and screeching and barking what I'm sure would make a sailor cringe if he could speak.

 **A/N:**

 **Well, that was certainly something. I'm not quite pleased with this chapter, but I feel like this is a pretty good way to introduce our characters Moth and Shannon. I hope you liked them, as I'm not sure their personalities have come through very strongly, but we will get character development as we go on.**

 **Hopefully I'll be able to work in some backstory for the two in the upcoming chapters, but don't hold me to it as I don't fully know it myself and I'm still working out details. Our main character finally has access to his implant, which to be absolutely honest I had forgotten was thing for a few chapters. My bad.**

 **I hope you enjoyed the chapter, let me know what you thought of it, any burning questions you have, and of any horrible grammar errors, and have a great day, night, or whenever you're readings this. Or don't, it's entirely up to you and I can't tell you what to do.**


	8. Chapter 8- Secundae

I stared up at the dino hanging about ten feet in the air above me. It was rather small, shorter than the ostrich dinosaurs but stockier, and it was bleating and howling and raising a racket sufficient to raise the dead. Even my crested friend winced and shrank back at the loud noises surprisingly reminiscent to the ones he made himself when he was upset or grumpy. The stocky dinosaur would thrash around every couple moments, sending the net rocking back and forth, and then set about howling and bleating once more. Shannon regarded it in a manner like she first observedme in the net, though I had a feeling a very different outcome would come of it.

She stepped off the dire wolf and pulled out her bow from the nigh magical inventory in her implant. She pulled back the string and shot the arrow. It struck with a thunk and a hoarse roar of pain. The dinosaur struggled harder, the net thrashing back and forth in the air with enough force to make the tree branch it hung from creak. She drew it back again, and another arrow embed itself in the struggling animal. She repeated this a good number of times, Moth flinched with every strike, and I looked away, knowing it was necessary to eat but still not enjoying it. My dilo companion watched intently and seemed glad and excited as its bleeds slowly became less loud and more feeble and eventually stopped entirely. Shannon put her bow away and walked around the tree. I couldn't see what she was doing, but the net fell shortly after, so I assume she untied the rope from whatever it was attached to.

She comes back around the tree and gives a hand wave to the wolf, who pads forwards and starts ripping large chunks of meat from the downed dino. As I watch, he doesn't seem to be eating it, instead each mouthful and chunk simply vanishing from his mouth before he took another. The dilo whines quietly and watches hungrily as the wolf strips the dino of all the edible parts of it's body. He barks up at me and sets his clump of nest at my feet and nods toward it, the lowers himself and pounces on the carcass. He lands right next to the wolf, who barks and rears back in surprise. He sinks his teeth into the remaining flesh and tears a piece from it, then flares his frill at the wolf and darts away before it can snap on his tail.

He ducks behind me and holds up the piece of meat, intending for me to take it, but I pull my hands away to say that I wasn't taking part in his little escapade. He blinks and pulls back his head in an offended and shocked manner. He turns to see the wolf had gone back to its job of butchering the stocky dinosaur and was ignoring him. The wolf had already bested him once, so he wasn't likely to try again, at least without a new tactic. He tossed his head back, getting a firmer grip on the chunk of meat with his teeth, then picked up his bundle of grasses and leaves in his claws.

Shannon pulls a hatchet from her inventory and waves off the wolf, who steps back dutifully. She swings the hatchet over her head and strikes the skull of the dead dinosaur with a sound like stone hitting stone. She repeats this several times, cracking and chipping off bits of the hard shell that covered it's head. The bits go flying but never seem to land, apparently entering her own inventory before they hit the ground. "What was this guy?"

Shannon paused in her actions to glance over at me and swung one more time before answering. "That was a pachy. Technically a pachycephalosaurus but it's easier just to call it a pachy." I nod, recognizing the name and looking closer at the mostly dismembered body I can see that it is indeed the dome headed herbivore I'm familiar with.

Shannon keeps hammering at the animals keratinous dome and nobby horns with her axe and doesn't stop until almost all of its dome has been chipped away and most of its horns have been removed. She puts away the axe and raises her arm to check her inventory, then closes it with a humph. She goes behind the tree and does something, then does something to the net, probably resetting it. After that she hops onto the wolf's back once more, nearly knocking off Moth in the process. She yelped and latched onto Shannon's waist, then shimmied back up into place awkwardly. I sigh and adjust the net I've wrapped around my neck like a scarf, knowing that I'm not a great tracker and that wolf runs at a much quicker pace than I do.

As expected, the wolf takes off at a full sprint and I run after. The dilo follows behind at a more leisurely pace, his sense of smell allowing him to track a good deal better than me without being left behind. The brush nicks me and scratches my arms, though my improvised scarf keeps it from gouging my neck and shoulders. The pine needles underfoot prick the soft undersides of my feet but I keep sprinting anyway, doubting that Shannon and Moth will come back for me if I'm left behind, and apparently this is very hostile territory.

Abruptly a massive form suddenly passes mere feet over my head. I drop to the ground and wheel around in panic, half spear drawn and expecting some horrible carnivorous dinosaur preparing to pounce at me a second time. Instead, a huge mammal stands there looking down at me boredly. It's probably twelve or fifteen feet tall and bipedal, with a dusty beige coat and lighter underbelly. It's feet only appear to have a single toe and it's face is blunt and rather mouse like. The huge kangaroo flicks it's ears, then bounds away with a single jump and disappears among the trees.

I get back to my feet and brush the dirt and pine needles off me, then set off again with haste. The pine trees are becoming more and more sparse and the underbrush isn't as shrubby, broad leaved plants and ferns starting to mingle with them. The decrease in evergreens thankfully also means a decrease in pine needles which makes this much more pleasant than it would be otherwise. The ground is also more clear and I can catch glimpses of wolf tracks between the leaves of the undergrowth, making my job considerably easier.

I run on for another five minutes or so before I come upon the wolf and it's riders. A mostly devoured body of some small animal I can't identify lays nearby and Shannon is resetting the net trap while Moth waits atop the wolf's back. I sit down to catch my breath, shooting a glance at Shannon, who returns it with what I'm sure is a smug grin under her helmet. I'm about to ask her if this was the last trap when a loud groaning sound almost like an elephant's bellow rings out through the wood. The wolf and Moth perk up at attention and looks around for the source, while Shannon ignores it and looks unworried. "What was that exactly?" I ask slightly worried.

"That would probably be a paracer. Biggest mammal on the island, but it's an herbivore so it's pretty passive. They usually live up in the redwoods, it's not often you see one all the way down here." Shannon explains.

"They look like big chubby giraffes too." Moth adds, having decided she had been quiet long enough. "I think they look cute, especially the babies." Shannon scoffs.

"Moth, you think everything is cute, even carnotaurus." She climbs back onto the wolf, careful not to knock down her passenger this time.

"But their arms are so stubby! It's adorable!" Is the last thing I heard before the collosal wolf takes off once more through the forest. I sit there for a while before getting up and starting to follow behind again. The dilo walked into the small clearing just as I was leaving it, expecting a break to finally sit down and have me cook his spoils. Instead, he saw my retreating form disappearing among the bushes once more. He growls under his breath and repositioned the chunk of meat he held to have a better grip upon it, then set to following me with a glare of daggers already prepared for when he caught up to me.

I continued on, focusing only on following the paw prints that showed the canines path and avoiding trees and brush in the way. I think I ran past another giant kangaroo but I didn't stop to see and kept on. A few small pterosaurs flew with me, racing at my sides like a squad of reptilian attack helicopters. I breathed in the air with rapid shallow breaths, finding I got air into my system better that way. I go faster and the dimorphodon sped up as well, a few of them passing me and moving ahead before falling back and lagging behind. I could scarcely keep following the tracks as I avoided trees and large rocks and particularly thick bushes without slowing down.

One by one my squad of pterosaurs flew off, slowing down or veering off in pursuit of something that caught their eye. I too slowed down my pace and near immediately began to regret it, my body deciding abruptly that it was going to start taxing a lot more oxygen than before and robbing me of my second wind. I gulp down air heavily and slow to nearly a complete stop. I half squat and lean against a tree, realizing how far I just ran at high speed and decently impressed with myself. I would be more impressed if I had actually caught up to the wolf, but it's trail of tracks seem never ending, stretching off into the distance.

A loud but muffled hoot rings out behind me and I glance back to see a very unhappy dilo standing there glaring at me. I shivered despite the heat under his intense stare. He struts over to me and stretches out his neck expectantly. I hold out my hand and he promptly drops theill begotten meat chunk into it. I stick my tongue out in disgust at the still bloody meat being dropped face down on my hand. I move to set it on the ground, but hesitate under the therapod's glare, then decide I'm going to put it down, then hesitate again.

Having an idea, I raise my wrist up to my face and the bluish inventory appears before my eyes. I scan through it, looking for some way to absorb it into my inventory like the wolf had with the corpse. I realize that while my vision is compromised entirely, I can still move albeit clumsily. I try dropping the meat in my hand and it disappears from my senses for a moment. Abruptly, one of the cubes in the top left has an icon of a slab of meat appear in it. I blink in surprise and move my wrist out away from my face. I look down to see that the meat is gone as is most of the blood that came with it. I chuckle to myself, turning my hand over in disbelief. The dilo looks mildly surprised but glad to not have to carry it anymore.

He turns in circles a couple times, sets down his clump of nest material, then lays down on it. I sit there regaining stamina and catching my breath while the dilo does likewise. We sit there for a couple minutes before I stand up and stretch, then start following the trail of footprints left behind by the collosal canine. The dilo stands with a grumble of complaint and trails after me, growling and hissing in annoyance every so often.

Me and my companion walk for another ten or fifteen minutes as near as I can tell before we come to a huge grassy clearing. However what stands out about it isn't the size, but instead the large two floor house sitting there with a number of other smaller wood structures nearby. The house appears to be made of a wooden frame with a flat wooden roof and presumably wooden floor, though the walls appear to be tightly woven thatch. A long wooden trough like what you would find on a farm stands up against one wall and I can see the heaps of berries inside it from where I'm standing. A large firepit surrounded in a ring of stones and three wooden benches which are little more than slices of a log with carved legs is in the middle of the clearing, about fifteen or twenty feet from the house itself. An oddly shaped reddish grey boulder, rather small though still a good deal larger than myself lay near the house in its shadow. There are several windows in the walls of the house, though from my position I couldn't see anything through them.

I approach slowly, not entirely sure if this was Shannon and Month's home, or if some other people were out here and I was trespassing on their property. I imagine trespassers wouldn't be dealt with lightly out here, considering I was nearly shot not two hours ago. I walk up to the fire pit and look around for any signs that this is their base. A lone large bone with teeth marks in it lay next to the fire. It might be the dire wolf's, though it could just as easily belong to some other carnivore. My dilo companion walks up to the bone and sniffs it, then shakes his head and steps away from it. He trots over to the boulder and sniffs at it, then tilts his head and hoots.

The boulder suddenly moves and turns to look at me. Me and the crested carnivore both yelp in surprise and the assumed boulder stands up with a bellow. It resembles a small triceratops but with a bizarre face, a thick lump from where its nose horn should be to it's forehead, and two small horns in a vertical row on the highest part of its forehead like a unicorn instead of over its eyebrows. It's frill has two large horns at the top that curve outwards and smaller triangular horns lining its frill, with a single large spike on its cheeks at the base of the frill.

It raises its head and shakes it back and forth while making a muffled grunting noise. With every toss of its head, a spritz of pinkish orange mist would spray from its nose mound, forming a thin cloud, though I can easily smell it even outside the mist. It's a heavy scent, almost like a mix between overripe fruit and cold medicine. It's not particularly horrible, but it is strong and overwhelming. I pinch my nose, though I don't feel any different or sick. However my dilo friend certainly did feel it, and he shook his head as if trying to rid himself of it. He staggered and stepped forward clumsily, shook himself once more thoroughly, then turned and completely ignored the ceratopsian. I blink in surprise, never having seen the dilo back down except against the moving fortresses of the turtle armadillos. The dino appears satisfied and stops spraying the cloud, stomps over to the berry trough, grabs a mouthful of berries, then lays back down.

The door of the house opens and a short girl stands there in the doorway. She peers out at me and waves and I blink in surprise again. I see the crested therapod approaching her from the other side of th e door and I'm about to shout a warning, knowing the dilo's deadly capabilities. He goes around the door, but instead of ripping the girl to shreds or spitting venom in her face, he simply peers up at her and blinks, then sniffs at her skirt before trotting off uninterested. I stare open mouthed and wide eyed, dumbfounded at the seemingly wizardry or demonry performed by the miniature fat nosed trike.

The girl giggles and runs back into the house, shouting something I can't hear. I stand there dumbly looking around suspiciously, half expecting just about anything to happen at this point. The girl runs back to stand in the doorway with the instantly recognizable face of a dire wolf over her shoulder, looking around curiously at what the small girl was so interested in. "Hey mister! I knew you'd get here eventually! Shannon said you got eaten, but I didn't believe her. Come on inside, don't just stand out there." She turns and starts shoving at the wolf who was nearly standing over her. He doesn't budge from her actions, but he steps back and out of the way once he understood her intentions. I realize from her voice that the girl is Moth, though without her painted armor on. I sprint over to the door pausing to look back at the dilo, who is now rolling in the grass in a rather puppy like manner and snapping at the air when a lone dragonfly zipped overhead.

"Umm. Is he gonna be okay?" I ask from the doorway.

"He'll be fine. Fatty just made him all nice and cuddly so he doesn't try to eat him and stuff. He does that to all the nasties, so he's kinda like our guard. He watches the base while we're gone and busy and all." I nod uncertainly, watching as he wriggled around on his back erratically, still clutching his nest clump in his clawed hands fervently despite this. I stood there for a few moments before Moth lost her patience and tugged on my arm, bringing me inside and allowing the door to swing shut with a dull knock as it struck the door frame.

 **A/N:**

 **Well. This chapter was a bugger in production. For some reason I just had a lot of trouble writing this one. I'm not completely satisfied with this chapter but I'm going to be busy and couldn't guarantee I'd get it out before Friday if I continued working on it. I don't have much to say about the chapter aside from that and that I hope it wasn't too boring, as I have some more interesting things planned for the hopefully near future, but I have to get these tedious chapters out of the way first.**

 **I'm doing some guesswork on the pachyrhinosaurus as we don't have everything on it yet, but I assume that the pacifying chemicals would be kind of like a drug and mellow out the aggressive dinosaurs for a while, explaining our ll tempered therapod's abrupt change of personality. This is only temporary, and he will not remain in this state for very long, so don't worry, he isn't going to be like this for the rest of the story for those of you who like his personality. I just thought it would be fun to show the awesome and unique ability of the pachyrhino like this.**

 **I hope you enjoyed the chapter, let me know what you thought of it, any burning questions you have, and of any horrible grammar errors, and have a great day, night, or whenever you're readings this. Or don't, it's entirely up to you and I can't tell you what to do.**


	9. Chapter 9-Cibatio

"So you're not dead. Good for you. I thought you had gotten eaten or lost considering how long you took. Where's your hell dilo?" Shannon asked over her shoulder from where she was standing at what appeared to be a counter.

The inside of the house was surprisingly well furnished, not quite matching the rugged and primitive exterior. It certainly wasn't modern looking, being rather rustic in appearance, but well furnished and well made. The counter appeared to be a thin sheet of hand polished mottled grey stone with hand made looking wood cabinets beneath. The counter made an L shape in the corner, the shorter arm against the shorter wall. Next to the shorter arm of the counter was what appeared to be a large, lightly dented, metal barrel with a door near the floor and a metal grate at the top. On two tall metal struts jutting from the top of the barrel is an upside down bowl shape also made of metal with a pipe coming off of it through the wall. It's a rather complicated looking apparatus but resembles most a mix of an old cast iron stove and a charcoal grill. I realize it's probably exactly that, a primitive indoor stove top.

I also realized that I hadn't answered her and instead chose to look around the kitchen for several moments, to her annoyance. "He's outside. Your mini trike drugged him or something and now he's rolling around like a loon out there." She raises her eyebrows in surprise and glances out the window to see him doing just that. She snorts and puts a hand over her mouth to conceal a grin.

"Wow, that's. That's just great. I never thought I'd see that. I guess that's why we have Fatty, to do that to carnivores who want a bite of us." She turns back over to me, "So are you gonna take that net off of your neck or is that just what you plan to wear? We do have standards here you know." I blink in confusion and put a hand to my neck, only to find that I did in fact have the damaged net still around my neck. I unravel it from around my neck bashfully, then hand it over to her. Shannon hold up her hands and scoffs.

"I can't fix that. That's Moth's handiwork. You should be handing that to her not me. Go before I start burning food." She gestures with the large knife she picked up off the counter and I backed off quickly, not wanting to accidentally provoke the girl. Even without her armor on, she's still pretty intimidating. I'd guess I'm about five foot five or six ,and she's a couple inches taller than I am as well as looking a good deal stronger or at least more in shape than me. I walk into the other room, which is rather sparsely furnished. Against the wall is a couch made of what looks like the fluffy pelt of some large mammal, and in the corner, an oversized canine lays next to the much smaller Moth, who seems to be fingerpainting on roughly round, thin slices of wood with thick multicolored dyes. The dire wolf raises its head to look up at me and bares its teeth in a warning not to try anything, then lays back down and noses Moth, who is intently spreading the colored dye across her canvas. She pushes at his nose with a hand absently and smudges a glob of blue dye on its snout. He snorts and rubs a paw over his snout several times, removing most of it. He gives a curt yip, not quite a bark, and Moth turns to look at him, then notices me standing there.

"Hey, Shannon told me that you're the one who fixes the nets, so umm, what should I do with this?" Moth points towards the door on the opposite side of the room.

"Just set it in there; that's my room. I'll fix it later." I nod and walk over to the door and open it to find a brightly colored room with a disheveled bed at one end. The room is nearly covered in various finger painted wood slices that form a nearly scale-like pattern on the walls. Next to her bed is a set of shelves with trinkets and small objects on the higher shelves, while the lower ones have messily folded clothes on them. A small table like a desk is also in the room, and I set the coiled net there, not seeing any better place to put it.

I exit the room and the dire wolf glances up again, though lays back down afyer without paying much attention to me. On closer inspection though, he is watching me with one half closed eye, making sure I don't try anything in his home. Moth is still painting on the floor, completely engrossed in her work. Not wanting to just stand awkwardly in the middle of the room, I sit down on the couch, which turns out is not the most comfortable. It's plenty soft, but not very well if at all stuffed, and the wood frame underneath is felt easily through the fur outer layer.

I sit there quietly for a few minutes, not knowing what to do with myself since I'm not just wandering around creation anymore. Various sounds of chopping and crackling fire and grease come from the kitchen along with the occasionally muttered swear, presumably from Shannon having an issue in either chopping or frying the food. I peer across the room to try and decipher what Moth is painting, but it's pretty difficult since it's upside down for me and her hand covers most of the picture when she's painting it.

"Foods on. Get some or go hungry." Shannon shouts from the kitchen. Moth jumps up and runs in, the wolf trailing behind a moment later. Before I could finish getting up, Moth runs back into the living room, scoops up her art supplies, then darts into her room. The wolf follows into the living room, then sits there, waiting for the girl to dash back into the kitchen. I follow behind the wolf into the kitchen and move to take a seat, only to have an extremely large knife suddenly placed in front of my face. I freeze immediately and begin thinking of escape routes from the for some reason enraged Shannon. "I said before, we have standards. No shirt, no service, and your shorts aren't looking in good condition either."

I'm reminded once more that I still lack both a shirt and shoes, and courtesy of my early rising crested friend, my shorts have a number of tooth holes in one leg. A plate of meat scraps is suddenly shoved into my hands and the knife is pointed at the door. "Go feed your pet. I don't feel like being eviscerated tonight because he got hungry. I'll get some clothes for you. Moth, you can eat without us until he's finished." I nod and step outside with a hustle in my step, not wanting to be eviscerated myself by the survivor girl. Outside, Fatty is still lounging in the shade, watching as the red handed dilo attempts to make a nest out of his grass clump and the giant chewing bone by the firepit with little success.

He looks up at me with a cat-like tilt of the head and a hoot. I set the plate of meat bits on the ground next to him and step back. He sniffs and noses at the plate for a moment before jumping up in realization and starts scarfing them down. Once he's eaten all of them, he bites onto the plate and sticks it underneath himself as part of his nest. I debate for a moment whether or not to try and take it from him, before deciding that even in his drugged state I would rather not potentially lose an entire hand to him and instead only a few fingers to Shannon.

I walk back into house, giving a half wave to Fatty as I went, to which he replied with a snort. Moth looks up from her plate where she was stuffing her face. She gestures to the living room with several muffled grunts that I assumed meant that Shannon is in the living room, then she returns to eating. I go into the living room to see that while Shannon isn't in the room, a very steep set of stairs has come down from the ceiling leading upstairs.

I walk up the stairs and into a small room with a window at each end and two doors on either side at the other end. I debate which one to open, then decide on the right side. I open it up to find a room full of shelves with various bottles and boxes and other manner of items. I close the door, then turn and open the other door.

I'm abruptly almost face to face with Shannon, who flinches back in surprise. She nearly drops the bundle of clothes she's holding but manages not to. "Sorry." She rolls her eyes and hands the pile over to me.

"Put these on. You can change in my room. And before you ask, no, I don't have anything else you can wear." She shoves past me and down the stairs. I frown but don't say anything and enter the room, shutting the door behind me. The shirt is obviously more feminine in cut, but it doesn't really matter as Shannon isn't exactly curvy, so the shirt isn't either, and the lower collar isn't that big of a deal considering I didn't even have a shirt before. It's red, rather predictably as Shannon is currently wearing a shirt of the same color, probably for the saying that if you wear red your enemy won't see you bleed considering how militant she seems. I switch out my bedraggled pair of shorts quickly for the pair of boxers she gave me and pick up what I assume is a new pair of pants only to find that it's distinctly not. I stared in disbelief for a moment, checking to see if she had given me an actual pair of pants and had done this as a joke, but no, she actually intended me to wear it. I dreaded what she would do to me if I came down as is, so I begrudgingly and awkwardly put on the garment. I sigh and exit the room, then go down the stairs into the living room.

I pause before going into the kitchen, but the promise of a well cooked meal makes me swallow my pride and enter. Moth doesn't respond or give any sign that she finds my situation funny, focusing on her good and barely sparing a glance. Shannon however is hardly managing to contain her laughter. Her hand is clamped over her mouth and her food is left forgotten on the table. Without a word I sit down and serve myself a generous amount of meat and what appears to be potatoes. While the table lacks silverware, each of us have a small two tinged utensil not unlike a grilling fork, which Moth is using quite deftly to get food into her mouth, not stabbing the inside of her mouth even once in her haste. I mimic her actions and manage to get a bite of food into my mouth.

The meat is fried perfectly and tastes almost like chicken but with the consistency of fried pork. The potatoes are definitely potato, but not any kind of potato I've had before. Their crunchier than other potatoes and have a slightly more bitter taste, not unpleasantly so, but noticeable.

Shannon is wearing the most malicious of grins while she starts eating as well. We eat in silence for little while before I cant stand Shannon's taunting look any longer. I sigh before speaking. "If you are looking for a reaction to your little joke, you aren't getting one." She grins wider.

"Well you have just by saying that. Are you enjoying the skirt?" I take another bite of food before answering.

"No, not really, no. I assume it's yours?" She nods.

"Yeah. Moth made it for me but I don't like wearing it, and since you barely had pants before, I thought you would be grateful."

"I see why you don't like wearing these things. No offense Moth," She shakes her head to say none taken, then wipes some grease off her hands onto the nose of the gargantuan dire wolf laying at her feet. "Couldn't you have given me like anything else? Like maybe a pair of pants like the ones your wearing?" I gesture to the loose red and grey pants she's currently wearing. She shrugs.

"I could, but then you'd get your germs on them and your dilo will probably try to eat them like he did your old ones. I don't care about those, but I do care about these. Plus, I gave you those. You should be grateful if didn't make you eat outside with your pet." I sigh, then quietly go back to eating, knowing that she's right. She has no reason to show even this much hospitality, let alone even sparing me in the trap. A little while later I mutter a thank you to her. She looks genuinely surprised, but in a pleasant way, probably not expecting me to thank her.

We finish up eating and Shannon collects the plates, then goes outside with them. She comes back in maybe a minute later with an accusing look on her face. "Where's the fifth plate?" I pause and think on it, then remember with a jolt of terror. I look out the open door behind her to see that my dilophosaurus companion is currently sleeping with a large gnawed bone under him, and missing plate clamped in his mouth. Shannon turns and follows my gaze, then slowly walks back wards into the kitchen where her knife resides. I run out the door in a frenzied panic, Shannon rushing after me with knife in hand and ruddy helmet on her head, intent on retrieving the plate and possibly a new trophy.

 **A/N:**

 **Okay. So our** **protagonists have gotten a meal, our main guy has some clothes (albeit quite embarrassing ones but it's two girls living out in the wilderness. It's not like they would have men's clothes on hand. They're survivors, not an outlet store.), and the dilo may be in a little predicament. After this and maybe a few more chapters, the story** _ **should**_ **pick up and be great for you awesome readers to read. The story should become more interesting soon, but not everything can be explosions and fight scenes and all. I have big things planned, but a lot of prep has to go into that, so just bear with me please.**

 **However i do have some rather bad news, as unfortunately I most likely cannot write two chapters like I did for halloween/day of the dead/other holiday you may have celebrated at that time, as I'm going to be extremely busy this Thanksgiving. I'm sorry guys. Please forgive me. However, I do have a holiday themed event planned, so I hope that makes up for the probable lack of two chapters despite the holiday.**

 **I hope you enjoyed the chapter, let me know of any horrible grammar errors I've made. Comments and questions are very appreciated and encouraged, and have a great day, night, or whenever you're readings this. Or don't, it's entirely up to you and I can't tell you what to do.**


	10. Chapter 10- Sorry

Guys I am so sorry, life hit me like a bag of bricks this week. I do not plan on letting this story die, but for a while at least, updates are going to be less frequent. I apologize greatly, as unfortunately i have responsibilities and things i have to do and get done. Please forgive me and expect a chapter next week, but i cannot guarantee another the week after. Im aware this is a poor excuse but im doing the best i can for the time being. This is not a haiatus, just a temporary decrease in content production.


	11. Chapter 11 -Dialogus

I struggled and pulled on the plate, trying to wrench it from the jaws of my carnivorous companion before the frankly terrifying Shannon got to him with her oversize knife. The red handed dilo refused to let go, digging his teeth into the plate and shaking his head back and forth. He seemed to be enjoying the game of tug and war, though if he won, his prize would probably be a knife to the throat. I pulled back as hard as I could, and actually lifted the dinosaur off the ground for a brief moment. He yelped but refused to let go, then pulled as hard as he could. Abruptly, I let go of the plate and he tumbled backwards with a yelp.

The plate went flying and landed upright like a wheel, then rolled for maybe a foot before falling on it's side with a quiet thud. The dilo scrabbles on the ground and looked around before noticing where the plate went. He made to pounce, but I beat him to it, latching onto his tail and knocking him to the ground. He hooted and thrashed wildly, confused and surprised by my actions. Shannon came charging up, prepared to gut the still drugged saurian to get back the plate, only to freeze with a confused face visible through her helmet at the sight. I lay on the ground, my arms wrapped around the tail of a dilo, who lay on his back, kicking and hooting and struggling to get up, being pinned down by my grip on his tail. I point towards the plate with one of my hands, then grab back onto his tail as fast as I could, the dilo nearly escaping my grip.

Shannon caught onto my gesture and grabbed the plate off the ground, still pointing the knife at the offending dilo. He hooted and howled, protesting as she took the plate out of his reach. One of his kicks nearly hit me in the face, reminding me that I need to be aware of his clawed feet as well as his quills. "This is miine! You hellspawn. Get your own chew toy." Shannon spat as she walked back towards the house, leaving me to deal with my still mildly drugged but quickly recovering dilo.

Realizing what I was doing, I release the flailing dinosaurs tail and darted back, getting to my feet. He wriggled on his back for a moment, then rolled over. He got up and shook himself, clearing the dirt and bits of grass and tiny twigs off of his quills. I very slowly backed away, hoping to escape unnoticed, or at least get close enough to Fatty that he could drug the dilo with his nose mist if need be. My companion turned to look straight at me and I froze, my escape plan shut down in an instant. He glared at me full force and growled, his frill twitching but not fully opening. He scratched at his snout with a claw and snorted, then shot me a glare before stalking over to his pitiful nest. Currently his nest was a clawful of grass and a large bone, which is quite pitiful and hardly deserves to even be called a nest.

I breath a sigh of relief that at least most of my blood will be staying in my body and my body parts are remaining intact and still attached. I walk back over to house, glancing back one more time to be sure the dilophosaurus isn't going to sneakily attack me from behind. He's pouting in his tiny nest and scratching at the bone, thankfully doing nothing of the aggressive ambush attack sort. I enter the wood and thatch building and find that neither Moth or Shannon are anywhere to be found. I check in the living room, but like the kitchen it too is empty. The drop down staircase is still protruding from the ceiling, so I can assume that Shannon is upstairs, but the titanic wolf and it's much smaller companion are still absent.

I cross the room to Moth's door and go to open it, but hesitate. It would be really rude to just barge in, so I raise my hands to knock. Abruptly my knee is slammed into the door as it opens from the other side. I make a shout of pain and surprise and try to clutch my knee while taking a step away. I manage to stumble clear of the door and the dire wolf pads out, walking past me without sparing more than a turn of the head. Moth followed behind, having held the door for him, and notices me standing there clutching my kneecap. She gives me puzzled look, then realizes what happened. "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry! Are you ok?"

"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine. You don't pack much of a punch when you're just opening a door." She nods.

"Still I'm sorry. I didnt mean to hit you." I laugh and wave it off.

"Seriously kid, im fine. You didn't break my kneecap or anything." She still looks unsure and like she's nearly ready to cry. A grin splits my face as an idea comes to mind. "Tibia honest, I'm feeling much better now. It was my fault for being a bonehead and standing in front of your door." She perks up immediately and claps a hand over her mouth to stop her giggling. Seeing results, i continue. "What? Don't you find me humerus? I thought they were rib ticklers myself." That did it, she's leaning against the doorframe laughing her head off, to the confusion of the dire wolf. Her laughter is contagious, and I can't help but laugh along with her. Footsteps sound from the other side of the room and I glance over to see Shannon coming down the stairs. She gives us a confused look, oddly similar to that of the dire wolf's.

"What are you two laughing about?" She says notably aggravated. I grin again, seeing the perfect opportunity for a pun.

"Hey, no need to be so sternum." Moth erupts into furthur laughter, practically sliding down the wall at this point. Shannon scowls, then walks off into the kitchen without another word. Moth is giggling and practically rolling on the floor, the dire wolf standing over her with concern. She pets his face blindly between laughs and pushes him out of the way. I offer a hand to her when she calms down enough to actually be aware of her environment. She grabs it with her own smaller hand and i help her to her feet. She probably doesnt weigh any more than eighty pounds if that much. She brushes some stray dirt off her shirt then hug tackles the dire wolf. He doesn't flinch, most likely used to that kind of behavior. "So you're a fan of puns then?" She nods, smiling brightly.

"Shannon doesn't though, and she gets grumpy when people tell them." I caste a glance at the kitchen, where i presume she is, unless there is some sort of trapdoor or passage in there. Considering the drop down staircase, I wouldnt put it past them.

"Well that's her loss. Puns are sacrum and should be revered above all else." I expected Moth to find this hysterical, but she only gives me a confused look as she tries to decipher what I've just said. I give her a few seconds then realize the problem. "Your sacrum is a bone in your lower back. Sounds like sacred." She nods and smiles, but a joke is ruined when you have to explain it. "Why doesn't miss military like puns? Did you tell her too many or something and ruin them for her?"

"Nah, she hasn't liked them since before I knew her. I've asked her about it before but she just gives me this wierd look and goes to her room or the kitchen or out to check the traps." She runs over and jumps onto the couch, and the wolf follows, but since he's pretty much as big as the couch itself he just rests his chin on the edge.

"How long have you two known each other anyway? How long have you been out here?" I sit down on the other end of the couch, then remember that it's basically a bench covered in a layer of fluffy fur. Soft to sit on but not particularly comfortable.

"Well I think I've been out here for either eight or nine months and lived with Shannon for almost all of it. Shannon... I think she's been here for two years. I asked her a couple months ago and she said at least a year and a half."

"Wow, no wonder she's so scary. She lived alone for a year in crazy dinosaur land. I almost died what, three, four times and I've only been here for three days. That's gotta be rough. I'm also a little more scared of her now. Good to know." Moth shook her head.

"I don't think she was alone. My bedroom was already made when I started living with Shannon. If she built the house all by herself she wouldn't have put in a second bedroom. Though she is friends with that big tribe up through the Smuggler Pass. She might have built it for them. She had Fatty too when i got here."

"Well isn't she a bundle of mysteries -wait, you said there was a tribe? As in people tribe?" She nods and pats the dire wolf on the head, who makes a rumbling noise in appreciation.

"There are other people out here. Not a ton of people, but there are some pretty big tribes. The one north of here has a little town and everything. There's also a pretty big tribe in the snowy place, and a big one way down south. Those are the ones I know about. You'll get to see some soon, Shannon doesn't trust you enough to leave you alone here, so we'll all go up for Thanksfest together. It'll be tons of fun!"

"What's Thanksfest? It sounds like some knock-off Thanksgiving." Abruptly a clatter comes from the kitchen and a muttered curse follows. All three of us turn to look at the kitchen, waiting for another clang or an explanation, but nothing more than a few muttered words is given in explanation. we wait q few moments before me and Moth return to our conversation and the dire wolf lays his head back down.

"Well, every year, a whole lot of tribes across the island call a truce and get together to trade and be friendly and stuff even if they aren't usually. I've never been to one, but Shannon has. That's were she got the stove and the wool for the couch." To emphasize this, she bounced up and down on the couch and rubbed the soft fur that covered it.

"That actually sounds pretty cool. But what if they try to attack each other when they let their guards down? I can't be the only person who thought of that."

"Shannon said that if anybody breaks the rules the other tribes all gang up on them for payment or revenge. She said that last year a small tribe tried to steal some dinosaurs from the tribe she's 's friends with, and it wasn't pretty. Practically everybody nearby pulled a weapon on them. Then they tried to fight their way out. One guy got all the bones in his hand broke, and she said he was lucky compared to some of them." At the shocked look that I'm sure was on my face, she continued. "It's not usually like that though. She says most people who are dumb enough to try something aren't dumb enough to try to stand and fight like that. Most people just want to have a good time. At least that's what she says." I nod, feeling reassured but still not totally confident on the matter.

"She's been around the block a couple times hasn't she." I ask, though it's more of a statement than an actual question. "I guess that makes sense. She came after a dino she called a hellspawn with only a knife. That definitely takes guts."

"Yeah. She's pretty great. But Red hands is only a dilo. Even a really scary dilo is just a dilo. If he were a raptor or a hyena or something she definitely would have worn her armor or took a javelin with her."

"You guys have hyenas out here too? Geez."

"Nuh uh, I'm pretty sure they aren't actually hyena. They don't look like them, but it's what everyone calls them. Some people call them dogs but they don't know what they're talking about," she turns to the wolf and grabs the sides of his head with her hands and touches her nose to his, "You're way cuter, and cooler than they are aren't you? Yes you are, yes you are!" The dire wolf blinks lazily and huffs, then licked her nose, getting slobber up half her face. She pulls back and sticks her tongue out in disgust. She wipes the saliva from her face onto her hands, then onto the shaggy neck fur of the wolf itself. He gives what I can confidently say is probably the closest thing I'll ever see to a dog rolling its eyes, but doesn't lift his head from its resting place.

"So is it normal not to call stuff by name here? This place gets more confusing by the minute."

"Well everybody doesn't want to call stuff by its really long name so they come up with short ones. Like the Utahraptor, everybody just calls them raptors and knows what they're talking about." I nod, realizing I'm probably going to have to learn all of their nicknames along with what actually lives here.

"Isn't there like a guide or something for all this?" At that moment, Shannon walked into the room with a mug seemingly carved from bone with some dark drink in it. She sat down on the other side of Moth, forcing her to scoot down some and for thle wolf to move his head.

"There is, but they're ungodly expensive. Only one guy on the island makes 'em. Other people try but his are the most accurate by far. He's practically ancient, grey beard and everything, but he still travels the entire island to write in his book and get more information." She takes a gulp of her drink before continuing, "Every copy is handwritten. I've had my hands on an older copy for ages. Thing fell apart and half the pages tore out, but I will admit that several dinosaurs and guys who don't understand the meaning of 'no' have been struck over the head with it, so it's not like I i took the best care of it. If you want one, you're gonna have to find enough bartering materials. Chitin would be a good start."

"Isn't that bug's shells?" She nods, taking another gulp of drink. I shudder slightly, remembering the giant dragonflies. "Well how much of that would I need to get one of those books?" She thought about it for a moment, then took another drink.

"Well, if the value of chitin is good, probably twenty to forty pounds," i blanched and I'm sure my eyes opened far wider than they should, "if the price is bad, probably your weight of the stuff."

I dreaded to ask but I knew I had to. "How much does chitin weigh?" A pause, then an answer.

"Not much." I sunk back into the couch, my skin crawling from the thought of having to kill so many giant insects let alone be near them. I nearly died to a swarm of dragonflies, and I know those can't be the only dangerous insect out here. Really, I'm fine with the smaller, regular sized ones, but if they're bigger than my hand, I want absolutely nowhere within ten feet of them. I rub my hands down my face to clear away the crawling feeling and realize I'm at an impasse. "What? You got a fear of bugs or something?"

"Well when the bug has a wingspan half the size of mine, I get pretty creeped out."

"Pansy. You've only run into Meganuera haven't you? The dragonflies?" I nodded slowly. "Wow, wait til you see a Pulmonoscorpis. That is going to be fun." My eyes go wide.

"What is Pulmonoscorpis?" She doesn't answer, merely taking another drink from her mug with tje smuggest grin on her face. "What is a Pulmonoscorpis Shannon? Shannon, I'm not kidding, stop smiling like that. Seriously, Moth, what is a Pulmonoscorpis?" She giggles and barely stifles a grin. "Seriously, you guys are freaking me out, stop it." Shannon starts laughing too, something I never expected to hear from her. I stay there for a few more moments before standing and nearly spriniting through the door, shouting, "Nope, not doing this. Nope. I'm done here." I walk out the door, letting it slam behind me, but I can still hear her laughter, now joined by Moth, even outside.

Fatty is still laying next to the food trough, watching as the sun set between the trees. My red handed dilo has rebuilt his nest, and now sits atop a rather large pile of leaves and grass, the dire wolf's chewing bone sticking out from the base. He's fast asleep, curled up with the bristles on his tail tip rubbing his snout. He snorted every once in a while, blowing a breath of air out his nose and pushing the quills away, but they would always return to their position after a few moments and start the cycle over. I chuckle and debate whether to sit next to him, but decide against it, not knowing if he was still pacified or back to his sour self. I instead sat down with Fatty, leaning up against his scaly side. He regarded me with a snort but otherwise didn't appear to care, and continued to placidly watch as the sky changed from a light blue to fiery red to black. It really was beautiful, but it was better out on the plain; the trees obscured most of our view, but it was still nice. I just stayed out there well after the sun had set. A blanket had been thrown out the kitchen window and i caught a glance of the top of Moth's head darting away. I smile and go over to grab the blanket, dusting it off as i grab it. I lay back down next to the fancily horned ceratopsian, who groggily watched as I did so and spread the blanket over top of myself, then tossed the excess over Fatty's side. He grunted at me, then lay back down his head and promptly fell asleep. He snored, not loudly but it was present and just loud enough to drown out the chirps and drones of night nsects. Idly I noted that this was probably the most pleasant night I've had out here, then drifted off into sleep.

 **A/ N:**

 **Sorry for your long wait everyone. We got a lot of dialogue, some humor, and a nice ending. I can't say much else about the chapter, but we did get a glimpse of Moth and Shannon's past. Do with that information what you will. Red hands finally has a proper nest again. Yay. Everything is staring to come together for a holiday mini arc. Or should I say mini ARK? Eh? Eh? Omg im sorrry for the puns, I couldn't help it.**

 **Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, let me know of any horrible grammar errors I've made. Comments and questions are very appreciated and encouraged, and have a great day, night, or whenever you're readings this. Or don't, it's entirely up to you and I can't tell you what to do.**


	12. Chapter 12- Digressio

The morning is quiet, the local Dimorphodon's not having started their screeching chorus. A few monkeys sat at the edge of the clearing muttering to each other quietly. One stood and looked around, then darted over to the food trough against the side of the house. It grabbed a few berries with its nimble fingers, then darted away as fast as its feet could carry it back to its troop. A few others crowded it and tried to snatch them away, but it bared its teeth and shoved the stolen goods into its mouth, nearly biting its own finger in its rush. The others screeched and hooted upsettedly, though careful not to be loud enough to disturb the owners of the house or their pets. Two more mustered up enough courage and ran over to the trough. They stuffed handfuls into their mouths and grabbed as many as they could with one hand, then ran back to their troop. Their comrades behaved like before and clustered around them, trying to take their plunder.

A smaller one, off white with garish dark grey highlights and skin, hooted and ran over to the trough. It stuffed as many berries into its mouth as it could fit and grabbed two oversized handfulls, oblivious to the fact that its troop had scattered back into the forest whence they came. It turned victoriously, only to be staring down an intense glare from a pair of reptilian eyes. The simian didn't move for a few moments, too stunned and near petrified under the intensity of the glare to do so. The owner of the eyes slowly opened its jaws and reared back, then lunged forward with a shrill roar. The monkey squealed and flung the berries at its attacker and leaped straight into the air. The dilo's jaw snapped shut on a mouthful of berries, which it coughed and spat back up onto the ground. The monkey gripped the wall of the house and scrambled up it as fast as it could. The red handed carnivore honed in on his prey who had nearly reached the second window and launched a projectile glob of venom. It struck the mammal directly on the side of the head and it shrieked, losing its grip and falling onto the frill and rolling down the face of the nearby sleeping Fatty. The Pachyrhinosaurus awoke with a surprised grunt and threw its head sideways while struggling to his feet. The monkey, who had clearly bitten off more than he could chew, dashed up to the top of the frill and took a flying leap off the ceratopsian and made a beeline for the nearest tree.

I awoke to the surprised bellowing of Fatty, the screams of a terrified monkey, the growls and hoots of the Dilo, and the sensation of one's skull being quickly introduced to the ground. My eyes flew open and was greeted by this chaos. In pure reflex I rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding one of Fatty thick legs coming down on my stomach. Fatty turned in circles, bellowing and trying to comprehend what had happened, while the dilo screeched and flared his frill, likely just adding to the chaos for chaos sake.

Abruptly the door slammed open and Shannon ran out, her bow drawn, and the dire wolf followed close behind. She already had an arrow notched and pulled back by the time she was clear of the door. She never used it though, she paused for a moment to observe the chaos and to try and figure out who she was supposed to be shooting. Fatty was still tromping and flailing his head back and forth, trying to find his assailant, which considering the dilo's screams, he likely thought was still present. Shannon's bow disappeared into her inventory and she pointed at the screeching therapod with her freed hand. The wolf pounced on the dilo, pinning him to the ground and his jaws shut.

Shannon herself ran over to Fatty and grabbed onto one of his cheek spikes and pulled down as hard as she could, forcing his head down. Fatty slowed in his frantic turns but didn't stop. Shannon was lifted off the ground nearly half a foot at one point but she held on with a grip like wrought iron. Fatty continued slowing until he stopped entirely, panting and rumbling deep in his throat. Shannon released her grip and gently wrapped her arms around his head, rubbing his neck and muttering to him. The dino calmed and allowed the girl to continue her ministrations, grunting appreciatively. "You're all right bud, everything is ok." She said just loud enough for me to hear. She gave him a few pats on the neck, then grabbed the trampled blanket from the ground. Fatty snorted and took a few steps over to the trough, took several huge bites of fruit, then flopped down on his side in the sun. Shannon now turned to me and I abruptly felt very much in trouble. "What the hell happened? It was that things fault wasn't it?" She gestured to the dilo now laying limp against the ground, the wolf keeping it pinned there.

"I have no idea but I heard something screaming it's head off and it wasn't me, him, or Fatty. Sounded like the world's angriest and scared toddler." She sighed and nodded, then I continued. "Off topic question. How many times can somebody slam their head off the ground before getting brain damage? Because I'm starting to get seriously worried here." She rolled her eyes and whistled sharply. The dire wolf raised his head and let up the dilo, this time taking several steps back so as not to be caught unawares like the first time. A few moments later the dilo sprang to his feet with a screech and darted over to his nest. He jumped into it, causing the leaves and bits of grass to go flying. Shannon rolled her eyes once more and walked back into the house, holding the door open long enough for the giant canine to follow after. I stood there for a little while, debating what exactly to do, before simply going inside, Fatty having calmed down and the dilo laying low in his nest, and the monkies having ran off.

A roughly Moth sized lump covered in a blanket sits at the table, the dire wolf having taken a resting place on the floor nearby. Shannon is rather angrily stirring the contents of a dented metal frying pan on the stove, and briefly glances at me when I come inside. I quietly take a seat next to the blanket covered lump and wait. A minute or so later and Shannon starts serving what appears to be bacon. Moth removes the blanket from her head, revealing her hair, which is pointing in practically every direction but down how its supposed to. She scarfs down her bacon, then throws the blanket back over her head and flops back in the chair. Me and Shannon quietly ate ours, the silence rather awkward but neither of us feeling like remedying it. I notice that she seems to have given extra to me and at first take this as an act of goodwill, then notice that there isn't anymore in the pan and that I need to feed my crested companion. I grab the rest of my plate and walk outside.

Fatty is still laying next to the food trough, which makes me wonder if the rather chubby animal ever actually does anything besides move in and out of the shade and eat berries. The Dilo is nowhere to be seen however, which is cause for some alarm. I hear a clatter and a hoot from behind the house and investigate, praying that the therapod hasn't done anything I'd regret.

I go around the side of the house to see the dilo is sniffing at what appears to be a large box with a large pipe coming out the back of it and up to the roof. "What are you doing back here?" The dilo snaps his head towards me, not having noticed me before, then hoots and returns to sniffing at the box. "I have breakfast." I shake the plate in my hand, but he ignores me, still trying to get into the box. Confused I sit the plate down and inspect the box myself. Its about three feet hight, three wide and maybe seven feet long and appears to be made of wood covered in a coat of grey something. The lid has a simple latch, probably to keep monkies from getting in it. I undo said latch with a little difficulty to see that its full of water. The dilo takes advantage of my confusion to dunk his head in and take several gulps from it. I note that the pipe coming in the back has a nozzle attached to it, which means that there is probably a rain catcher on the roof, considering that's where the pipe leads. I take a quick drink myself, then shut the lid and relatch it. My dilo companion has taken this time to eat the bacon and is now nibbling at the plate to see if its edible too.

"Bud, I need you to give me the plate." His eyes flick up to look at me, then, while staring directly at me, takes another bite down on the plate. I sigh and take a deep breath, preparing to do something that I hope wouldn't leave me with a scar or missing extremities. I glared at him, looking him straight in the eyes while reaching down for the plate. The dilo glares back intensely, refusing to be outdone and lets go of the plate to give me one of his soul shuddering glares. I snatch up the disk, and the dilo realizes what I'm doing and tries to bite down on it, but I manage to keep it away and raise up above my head and out of his reach. He hoots at me angrily and twitches his frill, upset at how easily I'd tricked him. "I already gave you bacon you greedy overgrown lizard, you can't have the dang plate." He glared at me again and let out a drawn out shriek, before stomping off to his nest grumpily.

Now with grumpy dilo fed and plate retrieved, I go back inside to see that both the blanket and Moth are gone, along with the dire wolf and Shannon. I walk into the living room to see the wolf laying next to the couch and the drop down stairs are once again part of the decor. I sit down on the couch, being reminded yet again that its just a fluffy bench. I sit there for a while, idly noting that the skirt Shannon made me wear is surprisingly not plastered in dirt or mud, stretched, or torn. While it's still a skirt and I still wish I had a regular pair of pants, these are probably the nicest I'll ever or hope to see. Moth must be a practical wizard with needle and thread. That's probably why Shannon had me give her the damaged net, she must be the craftier of the two.

Shannon comes down the steps with a balled up piece of clothing in her hands. She tosses it to me and I manage to catch them. They seem to be a leather pair of pants, colored, unsurprisingly, dark red. "Change into those, you can use my room. We're heading out in five unless Moth didn't put Fatty's saddle back."

"Where? Thanksfest? That's what it's called, right?"

"No, then yes. Thanksfest starts in four days, and lasts ten days. Most people only stay for seven or eight though. We," she paused, "are going for a resource run up to the Redwoods. You are going to have to kill a hella lot of bugs or find something valuable if you plan on buying a Field Guide." With that, she strode into the kitchen and out the door. I went upstairs and into Shannon's room. I quickly change, putting the skirt in my inventory after a moment of debating what to do with it. Shannon's room is surprisingly rather empty, a large bed and a rather lopsided desk being the only furniture in the room. A series of shelves line the back wall; some covered in clothes, others in nicknacks and things I can only assume have personal value. On the opposite wall, seven or eight spears hang on the wall, along with two hatchet, and what appears to be a machete.

After checking to be sure Shannon isn't standing right behind me or anything, I grab one of the hatchet so from the wall and swings it a couple times, getting a feel for it. It quite obviously makes a better weapon than my sharp rock, and knowing the crazy stuff that lives out here, I'm going to need it. Plus If I run into whatever a Pulmonoscorpis is, which I'm guessing are terrifying, I don't want to just throw a rock at it and hope my semi trustworthy companion doesn't leave me for dead. I very carefully put this too in my inventory, as if for some reason when I let go of it to put in it doesn't get absorbed via whatever magical properties the implant uses, I'd rather not drop an axe blade on my foot.

I go back downstairs to find that the titanic wolf is gone and the house is quiet. I check in the kitchen but there is a distinct lack of people there as well. Having exhausted my options inside, I check outside to find Shannon and Moth very poorly cooperating to try and put a saddle on Fatty. The Pachyrhinosaurus is complacently standing for them to put it on, but his bulk is apparently posing quite the obstacle for putting on the leather apparatus. The Dire wolf is sitting nearby, chewing on his bone, which he apparently stole back from the dilo. Said dilo is currently fixing his nest and glaring daggers at the wolf, who is ignoring the small dinosaur entirely.

"Do you two maybe need some help with that?" Shannon gives me a brief glance, then with renewed vigor yanks on the strap and forcibly attaches it to the other side of the saddle. Fatty grunts in surprise and mild discomfort, but doesn't move aside from turning his head to see what they were doing. Shannon pats him on the side and rubs his neck for a moment, then addresses me.

"That would be a no. Saddle up. Moth, are you riding on Fatty or Strider?" Moth debates for a moment while Shannon climbs onto the wolf's back.

"I'll ride with him on Fatty. I don't get to ride him very much." Moth gestures at both me and Fatty with her hand. Shannon nods, then turns to me.

"She's driving. You sit on back. You've got no idea what you're doing." I open my mouth to argue, but fail to come up with a retort as I realize she's right. I'd probably steer Fatty off a cliff or something equally unhealthy. Moth practically jumps onto Fatty's back, which is easily six feet off the ground, like it was stepping onto a step stool. I stare for a moment, doubting that I can get up that easily. "What? Never ridden a horse before? Same thing basically."

"Uh, your guess is as good as mine. Lack of personal memories, remember?" Shannon rolls her eyes and steadied herself as the dire wolf shifted its stance.

"Just use the footholds. They're built into the saddle." I nod and see that's true. I hoist myself up and manage to struggle into the saddle behind Moth, nearly knocking Moth off doing so. Moth giggles and rights herself, while Shannon just rolls her eyes and puts on her helmet. The wolf howls, then takes off running into the forest. Moth presses her heels into Fatty's side, and the ceratopsian tossed his head, then plodded forward after the wolf. My dilo companion watched us go, and seemed to debate following us, before noticing that the wolf had left behind his chewing bone. He hooted at us, seemingly in goodbye, then pounced on the bone and drug it back over to his nest.

Fatty moved at a surprisingly quick pace for being so heavy set and the ride was surprisingly smooth. Moth steered him with little trouble, letting him follow Shannon on his own accord for the most part. We ride quietly for what feels like at least an hour before I get bored of the silence. I look around for something to start a conversation about, and settle on the cloudy sky high above with a mischievous grin. "Nice day huh?" Moth turns around to look at me, then up at the sky.

"Yeah, I guess. It's a little cloudy though. At least it's not as hot as yesterday." I nod, despite the fact that she turned around to face forward again.

"Yeah, those clouds remind of this one time when it was foggy. I tried to catch some, but I mist." I manage to keep a straight face even as she bursts into giggles. I quickly think up another and sit up in the saddle. "Weather or not Shannon likes puns, I'm going to keep telling them, rain or 'shine." She devolves into full laughter and slumps forward in her seat. "Sorry, I just can't help it. I am the raining champ of puns after all." She laughs even harder, to the point where Fatty turns to see what's going on and a few small dinosaurs run off into the shrubbery squawking madly. I only got a glimpse of them, but they vaguely resembled a dilophosaurus and were of similar size, but stockier and with a long neck. Fatty probably also had a hand, or claw, in the matter, considering that the overweight pachyrhinosaurus could have probably broken every bone in their body if he had stepped on or tripped over them. "Okay, I'll ease up on the puns. I've got snow more left anyway." She practically explodes and nearly falls of the saddle. I catch her by the arm and pull her back up, careful not to pull myself down or to be too forceful and accidentally hurt her. Shannon's already nearly shot me unprovoked, and she's pulled a knife on me several times in the short time I've known her. I really don't want to find out how far she'll go if I accidentally hurt Moth and give her a reason to hurt me.

"How do you know so many puns? Its like you could make a pun out of anything." I shrug.

"Not out of anything, but you just pick a word that sounds kind of like another word and go from there. Like if you own a cat and it breaks something, it would be a cat-astrophe." Moth giggles and nods, then becomes quiet for a minute.

"So if you had a great time at the beach, you'd have had a whale of a time?" I laugh and nod.

"There you go. You're really krilling it now." She grins and thinks for a moment.

"I eel like you're just fishing for complements now."

"Whale I don't see how. I'm just doing this for the halibut." Moth bursts into laughter and I can't even keep a straight face. Fatty snorts and grunts, confused as to why we were being so loud, which for some reason makes us laugh even harder. Eventually we both calm down enough to breath without laughing and to make intelligent speech. We ride quietly for a few more minutes before I decide to try and make conversation that isn't just puns and bad wordplay. "How much longer do you think until we get to wherever we're going?"

"We aren't far, I don't know how far exactly but we shouldn't be long. There are pine trees around us, so we're pretty close." I look around and note that as a matter of fact there are numerous evergreens mixed in with the regular leafy trees.

"Huh, cool. So is there anything I should know about the Redwoods? Like maybe tyrannosaurus who particularly like the taste of human teenagers or whatever the heck a Pulmonoscorpis is?"

"Well you probably won't find a Pulmonoscorpis or a Rex, but you might. Bears live up there, you should definitely watch out for them. They're cute as babies but the adults are pretty much furry bulldozers with claws and teeth. Terror birds and raptor packs live up there, but usually not at the same time. They hate each other and fight a lot. Allo packs sometimes go up there too. They're what you really have to look out for." I lean back in the saddle, glad I had pocketed one of Shannon's axes.

"Isn't there anything up there that isn't a hyper deadly carnivore?" She shrugs and scratches Fatty's neck behind the frill. He groans appreciatively and tosses his head.

"Paracers live up there. Otherwise I don't really know. Shannon usually comes up here without me and only likes to tell stories about the scary stuff. Her friends in the tribe up through the pass like to hear them too." I nod and take a moment to look around at the scenery. It's a rather plain forest aside from the occasional boulder or more frequent pines. The undergrowth is mostly bushy plants rather than the large leaved plants and ferns of the warmer regions like the jungle I trekked through on the first day. It feels like so long ago, but I only got here three days ago. Wow. My 'times I've almost died' to 'days I've been here' is seriously way too high on the nearly died side. Is this what life is always like out here? How does anything live to adulthood out here, people specifically. People out here must be pretty tough, Shannon is testament enough to that. How did anybody manage to carve out a city in this place? I suppose if enough people banded together they could find off and take down just about anything out here, unless there are some horrifying kaiju creatures I'm unaware of and probably would prefer to remain that way.

Fatty suddenly pitches forward and I'm jolted into Moth's back. She doesn't acknowledge this and pulls back on Fatty's reigns. Fatty bellows and digs his heels into the ground as he slides down the sharp incline. He reaches the bottom a moment later and slows to a stop, panting from the exertion of keeping himself from falling headfirst down the riverbank. I scoot back in the saddle so as not to crush the smaller girl in front of me against the saddle.

We know stand in a riverbed probably thirty feet across and probably ten feet deep, but the water running through it is barely a third of that. The river, which is obviously dried up, is only ten feet across at its widest point and probably three or four feet deep in the very center of the channel. The opposite bank however, is a large sloping hill, and at the top, a forest of trees as tall as skyscrapers stand. I crane my neck up to see the very tops of them, and I'm nearly blinded by the sun behind them. A howl rings out and both me and Moth look upriver about forty feet to see Shannon, in full suit of armor, standing next to the dire wolf, waiting for us somewhat patiently. Moth waves, then pats Fatty on the neck and he trudged forward, across the diminished river and over to them.

"Took you long enough." She calls down to us from her vantage point atop the bank.

"Well its not our fault Fatty only has one default speed. Slow." I retort. Fatty grunts and tosses his head as if in complaint while Moth giggles quietly. She directs the dinosaur farther upriver, where the bank is not so steep. Even so, the Pachyrhinosaur groans in exertion as he hauls himself up onto the bank. "Hey, can I get down now?" Moth nods and has Fatty come to a stop, much to his appreciation. I try to climb back down the saddle the way I got up it, but I miss the bottom foothold and fall the last two feet backwards. I hit the ground hard enough to force the air our of my lungs and my skull meets ground once more. At this point I'm pretty sure my cranium and dirt are well acquainted with one another.

"Are you okay?" I debate that for a moment before sitting up and giving the concerned girl a thumbs up.

"As much as usual. I think my head is actually getting stronger considering how many times I've hit it out here." She smiles and looks relieved. We go back downstream, Moth still atop Fatty and me alongside her. Shannon is waiting for us while smearing a thick green paste on the tip of a sturdy looking javelin with a handle that's probably four feet long. The wolf lifts his head to look at us and gives a curt bark, alerting his rider of our presence. She looks over to see us approaching and the bowl of paste disappears, presumably into her inventory, and she brandished the weapon with a flourish.

"You two ready?" Me and Moth nod. Another javelin appears in Shannon's free hand and she tosses it to me broadside. I reflexively catch it with one hand and I'm actually rather impressed with myself. "You're going to need that. Let's go. Daylight is burning." With that she turns and we head up the slope to the imposing forest above.

 **A/ N:**

 **Well I hope that has appeased you loyal viewers. You guys are awesome by the way, this story is getting far more popularity than I expected and I'd like to thank you all for that so much. Next up we'll be getting some adventure in the daunting Redwood Forest. Expect big things, hint hint, and some more risking of lives. Fatty has also finally gotten up and done something other than drug up the dilo, so that's fun. We'll also be meeting a good deal more people when Thanksfest finally rolls around, I've got some hopefully touching backstory planned, some fun moments, and some not so fun ones. I hope you're all looking forward to it.**

 **Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, let me know of any horrible grammar errors I've made. Comments and questions are very appreciated and encouraged, and have a great day, night, or whenever you're readings this. Or don't, it's entirely up to you and I can't tell you what to do.**


	13. Chapter 13- Hiulca

The thick red tree trunks tower above us, their branches probably a hundred feet into the air. Far above, the form of some pterosaur that I can't recognize from such distance glides through the branches, looking for all the world like a tiny songbird compared to the sheer size of the trees themselves. Strange calls echo out through the serene yet unnerving place, probably echoes of echoes of some large animal far off. I recognize a few as the bellows of a paracer, but some are far deeper and melodic, almost like a simplified whale call but no less majestic. I glance over to Moth, who is looking around with a similar sort of wonder and awe.

Shannon however looks on edge, as if waiting for some carnivorous monster to suddenly erupt from behind one of the columnar trunks or drop down from above or come changing from the underbrush. Probably rightfully so. Considering that she has the most experience out here and is probably just as dangerous as the oversize wolf, and she's scared, or at least wary, this place has to be a practical death trap. I tighten my grip on the javelin she gave me, idly wondering how well it would fare deterring a bear the size of a truck if Moth is presumably accurate in calling it a furry bulldozer, and considering the massive size of the dire wolf. If the wolves here are bigger than grizzly bears, I can't imagine how huge the actual bears would be.

Shannon suddenly throws her hand up and we stop immediately. She kneels down to inspect something in the dirt. She looks around quickly, making sure whatever made whatever it is she's looking at isn't in the immediate area. She stands and brandishes her spear, then starts forward again. As we follow, I see what she was looking at. A massive footprint, easily bigger than a dinner plate, is imprinted in the forest floor. I'm not a hunter or well versed in footprints, but if I had to make a guess as to what sort of beast left it, I'd wager I was about to find out how large exactly a dire bear was.

Even Fatty was silent as we crept through the undergrowth, and a heavy sort of stillness had settled over us. I shift my hold on the javelin so as to be able to properly defend myself if the need to arises. The wolf held his head low to the ground, his ears pricked up to catch any sounds. Moth looked nervous and drew out her red helmet from her inventory, quietly putting it on. I silently wished that I had a suit of their bizarre armor, or really anything sort of protective gear beside the leather pants Shannon gave me.

We halt abruptly as the dire wolf lifts his head and bares his teeth. Shannon grips her spear and turns back to glance at us, as if assuring we were still there, then motions to Moth, who nods. I don't understand the gesture, but Shannon pulls out a piece of cloth and steps aside with the wolf, allowing Moth and Fatty to step forward. Shannon points at Moth and abruptly covers the dire wolf's nose with the cloth. Fatty shakes his head vigorously, spraying a familiar, strong snelling, pinkish orange cloud from his nose boss. I hear the crunching sound on the other side of the brush quiet slightly. Shannon removes the cloth from the wolf's nose, who shook his head and sneezed. Shannon makes another motion and steps through the underbrush, the wolf following behind. Fatty trudged through the bushes, flattening them underneath his scaly feet. I follow behind, rather perplexed at their lack of caution.

An absolutely gargantuan creature stands hunched over what appears to be a mass grave of insects. It resembles a cross between an elephant sized bear, a gorilla, and an anteater. It stands hunched like a gorilla with a thick muscular body and chest, but with shaggy fur and ears like a grizzly bear, and huge claws like an anteater and a rather fluffy tail. It's face is broad and vaguely reminiscent of a horse, and a long tongue darts out to lap at the hollowed insect shells.

It raises its head and peers over at us with a pair of beady eyes while brandishing its huge claws. I raise my spear and step back, praying that this mammalian monster doesn't fancy eating a human instead of giant insects. It regards me as if I'm a flea or something equally insignificant, then goes back to hollowing out the corpse of what appears to be a massive ant. Moth dismounts Fatty, and begins picking up the empty bug shells, as do Moth and the Dire wolf. I watch for a moment, before realizing that the huge mammal doesn't care in the slightest if we lay claim to his leftovers. I gather up an armful of the chitin husks, noting with distaste that they all have a generous coating of spit. I nearly gag when I pick up the severed head of one of the ants and its antennas and mouthparts twitch. I toss it with what would be considered a shriek if I had more volume and nearly drop the exoskeletons I was already carrying. Moth giggles while Shannon only rolls her eyes. "Is this the normal size for ants here?"

Shannon shrugs while picking up the severed ant head I had flung. She deposits into her inventory then turns to look at me. "Basically, yes. Everything is grown big here, especially the bugs. Makes for an awful picnic if you set up near a hive. Before that day was over I had probably smashed thirty or forty ants heads in. Made sure to never bring food near that nest again." I get the rather funny yet still mildly terrifying mental image of Shannon smashing giant ants with a stereotypical picnic basket as they try to steal the goods inside.

Once I've gathered as much ant exoskeleton I can hold and stand touching I begin trying to get it all into my inventory, which proves to be quite the challenge. I finally manage to get my left arm up so I can see my inventory without dropping the hole pile, then carefully begin dropping them one at a time and counting as they appear in my inventory. I dropped several without depositing them, but most of them got in my inventory safely. I blink away the blue screen and notice that nearly every bug exoskeleton has been picked up off the ground, save for the ones that still have contents, which are being greedily gobbled up by the giant fuzzy mammal.

"Why did you put the shells in your inventory like that? It's a waste of time doing it that way." Shannon remarks as she studies the tip of her spear, probably making sure the edge hadn't dulled by glancing off of anything. I give her a quizzical look, which goes unnoticed, so I'm forced to actually ask her what she means.

"What do you mean? That's the only way I knew how to put stuff in there." She turns to me to see if I'm messing with her, then realizes I'm not and rolls her eyes. She stomps over to me, though that's probably just because of the armor and the fact that she's not actively trying to be stealthy at the moment. She grabs my left arm and holds it up to my face forcefully, which in turn causes the blue tinted inventory screen to pop up.

"The blue bar to the right, the wide one. There should be a little brighter blue mark on it. Do you see it?"

"Yeah I see it."

"Is it on the left side or the right?"

"The left. Why does it matter which side it's on?" I hear her audibly groan in response.

"Focus on it and move it to the right, like how you select something in your inventory." I do so and the entire screen flashes for a moment as if being reset. I startle slightly and blink, causing the screen to disappear as Shannon releases my arm. "Now your implant is set to automatically gather whatever materials you pick up and uniform them. So if you pick up a bunch of branches or rocks of different shape, they'll all come back out the exact same size and shape as each another. It helps establish units for trading, though it doesn't hold details, so if you have something with a special pattern carved on it or whatever it won't be there when you take it back out. When you have it set to the other way, you have to put things in manually but it keeps them seperate and in the same condition as you put them in. You can't accidentally put stuff in there either unless you're a complete clutz."

"Well that's useful. Thanks." She shrugged.

"Hey, if you're living with us even temporarily, you should at least know basic skills so I don't have to save your scrawny hide every few minutes or show you how to do everything. Don't you experiment at all? Seriously. Me and Moth worked that out on our own." I sigh, feeling rather foolish thinking that she'd just show it to me out of the goodness of her heart without ulterior motives or an insult. With that we set off once more, giving the giant mammal plenty of distance as we went around it. The dire wolf is still on alert, though Shannon seems a little less on edge. Fatty just plods along, looking like he'd much rather be lazing in the sunlight and eating berries than exploring potentially predator filled wilderness. I don't blame him. The worst I've dealt with is a bad tempered dilophosaurus, a persistent crocodile, and a carnotaurus. Looking back on it, it seems my combat skills mostly consist of running and hiding behind large rocks. I'm suddenly not so sure I'm safe out here. I stand closer to Fatty and Moth, and neither seem to notice or care, though I do feel a little safer considering the ceratopsian's chemical weaponry and his size. He has to have been around for a while to get that large, so his spray has to be pretty effective in deterring danger.

We continue for probably ten minutes until a massive tree branch crashing into our path from above jarred me from my musings. Shannon and the wolf both leaped back and Shannon drew her weapon, and Fatty lurched backwards with a surprised bellow. I on the other hand did a much less graceful yelp of surprise and jumped backwards, then proceeded to trip on a stone. My behind met dirt, but fortunately my skull didn't for once. A panicked shrieking from high up in the canopy denoted the reason for the abrupt arrival of the tree limb.

A huge pterosaur with a crest like a semicircle frantically flapped and scrabbled at the rough tree bark, attempting to prevent falling like it's perch had. It gripped the trunk after dropping several feet, then slowly climbed sideways around the tree to another wider branch. Shannon stood and dusted herself off, then shot a glare at the offending reptile, though nowhere near as soul piercing as my companion's who was probably tormenting monkeys back at Moth and Shannon's place right now. I stood and brushed the pine needles off, removing a few particularly pointy ones that had stuck themselves in the bottom of my foot, then sprinted to catch up to the rest of my party who had continued without me.

The entire place seemed empty of life aside from plants for the most part, though the sounds of dinosaurs and other creatures suggested otherwise. Never was there silence for more than a few seconds before a bellow or roar rang out or chattering of some small animal shattered it. The brush around us rustled every now and then, but nothing ever showed a glimpse of itself or lunged out to kill us. Even so it was rather unsettling, and even Moth looked concerned. Fatty rumbled to himself a little louder than usual and stopped for a moment every minute or so to glance around before continuing. The wolf bared his teeth but didn't growl, and held his head lower to the ground, peering into the underbrush with distrust. Even the forest seemed to quiet a little, the chattering of small creatures around us were much less frequent, and most of the big animal calls sounded pretty far off. I couldn't stand the silence for much longer and whispered to Moth. "Do you know what's going on? Should I be worried more than I already am?" She didn't respond for a moment, then leaned over in the saddle and whispered back.

"I don't know, but I'm scared too. I think something is following us. It might just be compies, they follow us around sometimes to eat what we leave behind." I nod and look around, remembering that I had dealt with them before. I turn back to her and whisper again.

"And what if it's not compies?" She stared at me with frightened eyes but didn't say anything and leaned back into Fatty's saddle. I frowned and pursed my lips, and gripped my spear even tighter than before. I turned to glance behind us, but I only saw the trees and underbrush that perpetually surrounded us. I look up to Shannon, who stares straight ahead with her weapon drawn, but there's a tenseness in her walk that denotes that she's aware of our followers presence too. I walk a little faster for a few steps to be a little closer to Shannon. No offense to Fatty, but I'd be a little more scared of her than the chubby ceratopsian. She spares me glance and raises her spear slightly, before scowling, at least I think she is, her mask conceals almost her entire face.

A bush several yards off abruptly rustles and every one of us immediately have our eyes glued to the spot. Shannon cocks back her arm with javelin in hand, the Wolf standing perfectly still and watching for her movement. The bush stills for a moment, then rustles again. Shannon launches her arm forward, the javelin rocketing out of her hands as if shot from a bow. A solid thump and a wail of agony bursts from the bush as she hits her mark, and the Dire Wolf practically soars into the bushes after the animal as it tries to retreat. A few yelps and a shriek and the creature silences. Shannon beats her way through the brush with her armored forearms and I follow in her path, following her to see what was brought down.

It was a rather small dinosaur, probably a foot shorter in length than a dilo but with considerably longer legs and a long neck. It's head was small and round, with an oversized beak. It's body looked scaly at a glance, but looking closer it was covered in tiny fuzz except for its legs, hands, and face. It looked to have been reddish orange even before being ripped up by the wolf and covered in blood, which gave it a distinct layering of red. Shannon pulled her javelin from the mangled creature and scowled at the tip, then pointed at the body. The wolf almost nodded, then began quickly tearing chunks of meat off the corpse, the pieces disappearing almost as quickly as he took them. While the wolf did that, Shannon produced a small jar and pulled the lid off it. She quickly smeared a glob of its contents onto her javelin head and rubbed it across it's surface. In a deft movement she snatched mine from out of my hands and smeared a glob onto it too, then shoved it back into my hands. In a whisper I asked, "What was that?"

"Narcotics, the strong stuff. You're gonna need it. That was just an Ovi, eggeaters. Whatever was following us is still out here and now they smell blood." The blood drained from my face and I gripped the javelin tighter. Once again, I wish I had armor like Moth and Shannon. The wolf growls and lifts his head, having finished carving up the dinosaur.

"Hey, could you guys maybe come back over here like right now? Fatty's getting antsy and I think there's something over here in the bushes." Shannon glances at me, then crashes through the brush once more, the wolf and myself following close behind.

 **A/ N:**

 **First, please do not strike me down and beat me for taking so long to update. Second, I am so sorry about that. I did not intend to go on hiatus, but with Christmas, New years, and Midterms, I completely forgot that I needed to update this. Once again I can't guarantee a chapter by next Friday, but I will promise that it will be updated in less time than it took for this one. And** **yes, I am an evil heartless person with that cliffhanger after that long wait. Sorry not sorry.**

 **The Thanksfest stuff should start in a couple chapters, I have a possible unforseen plot twist planned, backstory, and a new story arc planned. Also, expect some action in the next chapter, a brawl is about to go down. Think of it as a gift from me to you in apology. For those of you who are here for feels and interesting plot, I'm afraid you'll have to wait a bit for it.**

 **Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, let me know of any horrible grammar errors I've made. Comments and questions are very appreciated and encouraged, and have a great day, night, or whenever you're readings this. Or don't, as its entirely up to you and I can't tell you what to do.**


	14. Chapter 14- Malum

**Warning: mention of blood and a few rather grisly scenes, you've been warned**

Shannon charges forward, doing and admittedly awe inspiring slide underneath Fatty and putting herself between the rustling bushes and Moth. The wolf is almost immediately by her side, having had to go around Fatty. I ran up, intending to slide under Fatty like Shannon had, before stopping in my tracks after realizing there was no way I was athletic enough to do so. I move to go around Fatty's head, when Shannon suddenly shouts and the wolf practically roars, it's growl being as loud as Shannon's shout. Fatty rears up and Moth shrieks as she holds on as tight as she can so as not to be flung. I jump back to avoid the pillar that is Fatty's tail being swung and catch a glimpse of the creature attacking Shannon.

It's small, only about a foot and a half tall and maybe three feet long, probably the size of a German Shepherd. It's got a long broad snout and a rather long skinny tail, and a thick muscular neck that looks more like an extension of the body than an actual neck. It's apparently pounced on her, as she's struggling to keep it off of her, though it's not heavy apparently, as it hasn't knocked her down. With a heave, the armored girl throws the mammal off of her and it tumbles into the bushes. The wolf who had been trying to remove it without harming its owner leaps after it.

Two more suddenly dart from the underbrush and dig their teeth Fatty's heels. Moth had just managed to calm the ceratopsian down, but the teeth being introduced to his heels sent him into a panic. He wheeled around with a bellow while Moth screamed in panic. A cloud of magenta and orange spray erupts from his nose boss, enveloping the area in the awful sickly sweet scent as the carnivores dash away before they go under its effects. I duck out of the way of the mist, my eyes watering at the sheer overwhelming scent. I can hear Shannon and presumably Moth too coughing even over Fatty's bellows of panic. I turn back to help, realizing I'm just standing there while we're under attack. Shannon is yanking downward on his cheek horn like before, holding on devoutly despite Fatty still spraying the chemicals. I take a deep breath and drop my javelin, then run over to grab the other side of his face.

I'm suddenly face down on the ground. I recoil as my hands and face sting from being slammed into the Redwood needles on the forest floor. I try to get to my feet, bewildered at how I fell, when suddenly I feel a sharp pain in my leg. I shout in panic and surprise as I'm dragged backwards into the brush. I catch a glimpse of at least six more of the creatures all sprinting towards Shannon and Fatty before I'm dragged downhill and out of sight.

I flail and try to grab for anything to stop being dragged away. I catch a root and hold on as tight as I can, but a second set of teeth are jabbed into my leg. I scream in pain as the two carnivores yank with newfound vigor and force me to release my grip. The thick leather my pants are made of is serving well enough to actually prevent their teeth to sink in any further than the tip, but it feels like my leg is clamped in a pair of vices. The worst part was that it felt like they weren't even biting as hard as they could, as if they were restraining themselves from inflicting their full bite force on me. They were amazingly strong, two animals the size of dogs being able to drag me while holding sideways at a near run, though it may be from my position that it seems so fast.

I try to twist myself so I'm not struggling to keep my face from being dragged across the ground, and almost as soon as I've angled my upper body so I'm facing up, we drop down a short cliff if it could be called that, only a foot or two high. My head slams against the ground and strikes something very hard, much harder than the usual soil I fall on, probably a boulder sunk into the ground. My vision dims abruptly and the back of my head feels hot, almost burning. I numbly try to move my hands to cover the injured spot but arms are refusing to cooperate. I'm still being dragged, but I can hardly feel the ground beneath me, and the creatures teeth are faint pinpricks. I struggle and focus on not passing out, knowing that if I did I wouldn't wake up. I prayed that I hadn't cracked my skull or broke any of my vertebra or ruptured some important blood vessel. I'm certainly no doctor or expert, but I know the basics, and I don't think anything vital besides my brain stem is back there. I'm pretty sure its not damaged because I'm pretty sure I'd have died by now if it was.

I'm dimly aware that we're either going uphill, or my sense of balance is destroyed. My vision is starting to return and I'm gaining some feeling back in my body. That also means I'm acutely aware of the pain in my legs once again. They've apparently loosened their grip, or at least their top teeth aren't in my leg anymore, and we've slowed down, though that may just be from going uphill. I squint at them, my vision still blurry, but they seem to have calmed or relaxed somewhat. They probably think I'm dead, and for a minute there I thought that too.

They're dragging me in a sort of zigzag pattern, probably to make it harder for Shannon and Moth to track me down. They're clever, or at the very least have done this before. I shudder internally, partially due to being somewhat incapacitated and partially not to alert them that I haven't kicked the bucket.

These things aren't like the dilo. While the dilo was clever and aggressive, he was only one dinosaur, and after I managed to beat him once he was almost as intimidated of me as I was of him. These planned this out, tracked us down, and attacked us while we were preoccupied. They grabbed me while Shannon was busy and lured away the wolf, then attacked them to distract them while they drug me off. Now they're taking me off who knows where to dispatch me and eat me. By the time Shannon and Moth can find me they'll probably have finished ripping me to pieces by then. For the first time here it's actually dawned on me that I could seriously die out here. Up until now it's just been an afterthought, and I've always been able to come up with a plan, even if it was simply to run as fast I could away from whatever is chasing me. This time I'm nearly out of options. I don't have the javelin, there are two smart carnivores I'm certain I can't outrun, no Moth, Fatty, Dire Wolf, Shannon, or even the bratty dilo here to save me, no tranquilizing berries, an injured skull that I have no idea how badly is hurt, and I'm not even sure I can walk.

This is really looking grim. I flex my arm to make sure it's responsive, and I nearly scream for joy when it responds to me. I clench my hand and unclench it a few times, careful not to let the creatures see. I slowly move my arm so that my wrist is near my face so I can access my inventory. Very slowly and carefully I turn so that I access my inventory to see what I have to work with. A horde of ant shells, my not so sharp clam shaped rock, and the half javelin. None of those are incredibly sharp, but the half spear is at the very least a weapon. I scan the blue screen once more and realize I still have the axe that I took from Shannon's room. If it belongs to her and is used for cutting of any kind, I don't doubt it's sharp enough to decapitate, shred, or thoroughly tear through whatever it's used on. That axe is probably the most dangerous tool I've ever held, though considering the incredibly brief set of vague memories that I have from off dino country or whatever Shannon and Moth called this place, I can't guarantee it.

I remain playing dead, remembering how well the dilos trick works. Apparently basically nothing out here normally does that, and I'm counting on these guys never having run into something that knows that trick. I wait and let them continue to drag me. We're not moving uphill anymore, and we've apparently changed direction. I don't know how long we've been going, but it feels like ages. Wherever they're taking me is apparently either really far away, or they're taking the most roundabout way of getting there they possibly can.

I'm yanked down another small cliff like the one that I slammed my head off the bottom of. I bite down on my tongue to prevent a shout of pain as my already damaged skull smashes against the ground. We don't stop over the edge, and I'm pulled down some tunnel. The world suddenly turns dark as a ceiling of dirt, roots, and stone obstructs the sky. I'm brought into a chamber probably eight feet across and roughly circular in shape. The floor is lined with grass and sand, all the tree roots apparently having been pulled out and removed. The walls and ceilings seems to be made of a mess of tree roots holding together the normally rather loose soil like ceiling and floor beams. It's dim, the only light coming in from the rather small opening.

The two creatures let go of my legs and move away. I can't see where they went, but they're still in the den as I have an unobstructed view of the entrance. I hear a sort of shuffling sound, then both of them exit the den one after the other. I wait for a moment, then sit up as best I can. The searing pain in my skull has dimmed to a dull ache. I reach back and feel dried blood in my hair. That's just wonderful. I pull back the leg of my pants to see the damage. The doglike whatever the heck they are's teeth definitely broke the skin, and the deepest puncture looks like it's about a centimeter deep or a little more. Their jaws strength is evident by the quickly forming ugly black-purple bruise in a ring around my lower leg. They're also throughly coated in dried blood, but none of them appear to be currently bleeding.

I don't know how long the creatures are going to be gone and I need to get out of here. I push myself over to a wall and grab for one of the thick tree roots. I pull myself up on the sturdy piece of wood, rather surprising myself at actually being able to pull myself up. I get one foot under me and put a little weight on it and shift my grip on the root. I don't fall, and I take this as a good sign. I pull myself up a little further and get my other foot under me. It hurts with sharp needles of pain when I put weight on it, but I'd take some pain now rather than agony and death later. I wait a few moments to acclimate to the pain, then let go of the root. I shake a little and I'm off balance, but I don't fall. I take a half step and it hurts almost as badly as if they've clamped down on me again, but I still remain upright. I take a full step and red hot searing pain shoots up my leg like I've been struck by lightning and I crumple.

I fall face first but I don't feel it, all my attention focused on the shear pain in my leg. My vision blurs but I'm pretty sure it's just tears, not from hitting my head again. I grit my teeth and wait for what feels like ages for the pain to dull. I pull up the other leg of my pants to see how bad it is. Unlike my other leg which had punch marks, this one has bright red gashes. None of them as deep as a centimeter, but they were long and painful. Apparently one of them didn't have as good a grip, and looking at my pant leg it has even more gashes and punctures than my leg. I punch the loose soil of the floor in frustration, then regret it immediately as my hand strikes a root.

I take a deep breath and try to scoot my way out of the den. The entrance is steep, but not greatly so. I grab onto a root near the exit and pull myself out. I blink in the contrast of light and brush the dirt off my face. I look around, but I don't see hide nor hair of the creatures. I have to get out of here, and fast. I can't walk, not with that leg. I spare a glance at me heel and see that one of the gashes has opened back up and is bleeding again. Today is just getting better and better. Even if I get away these guys will probably be able to track me down thanks to that. I can only hope to find Shannon and Moth before the the dog creatures find me.

I get to my knees and begin hobbling away from the den as fast as I can, idly noting that in a less dangerous situation this would probably look pretty funny. I push my way through a particularly thick clump of ferns and I'm met with a huge 's all pale colored bones, many of which are missing, implying its been here for a long time. It's simply gargantuan, it's ribcage easily large enough to fit an elephant's inside of it. Its femur is as long as I am tall, and while it's missing its skull and probably most of its neck, there's no doubt it had a huge one in life. I notice that one of its ribs is broken and shattered into several pieces. I grab the tip piece and see that it's about three or four feet long and sturdy, before it suddenly dissappeared in a flash of blue light. I blink in surprise then realized my inventory ate it. I raise my arm up and open the screen, and flip the bar from automatically grabbing. I pull out the long bone and notice that it's smoothed out considerably, all the chips, cracks, and scuffs having been smoothed out and all the dirt that had clung to it before was gone. I guess that's pretty useful for cleaning if everything that's not part of it or solidly attached is taken off. The bone now looks quite clean and is about the size of a cane. I get an idea and try to prop myself up on the rib. It supports me easily, having supported a multiple ton animal in life.

I use my newly fashioned cane to support my injured foot, and set off at considerably faster if not more awkward pace. Everything looks the same out here, and I can only be sure I'm not walking in circles by the fact I can see my awkward and irregular footprints in a more or less straight line behind me. I have no idea where I'm going, just that it's away from those things nest. I stumble through the bushes as quietly as I can, though I can still hear small animals skittering away from me in panic long before I come across where they were feeding, hiding, or otherwise. I come across a few animals that could best be described as fat sausages with legs, and they seemed not to notice me until I was practically on top of them, but once they noticed, they too ran off, or waddled off, with a few alarmed grunts. I have no idea what they were, but considering how slow they are and defenseless they look, they give me a little hope that I can survive out here. I at least have superior intellect and Shannon's axe, though I also have injured legs, so I suppose that removes my advantages.

I stop to rest for a moment against a boulder, the ache and pain in my legs having gotten to the point I could no longer ignore it. Having nothing particularly better to do I raise my arm up and look in my inventory. The model of myself is still there, though I certainly look worse for wear. I glance at the values on the right of my screen. The health value reads 76 out of 100. Considering how close I was to dying back there, I'm surprised it wasn't lower. Though I suppose wounds on your leg that have stopped bleeding aren't directly life threatening. If I was injured similarly on my chest it would probably read at a considerably lower number. I look over the actual inventory part of my inventory, noting that each ant shell is in its own slot. I realize this means I'm going to have to take all of them out manually and put them back in in the other setting at some point. I shudder at having to mess with the disgusting shells later, but decide that's a problem for later me. Present me has slightly bigger problems to deal with to add that to the list. I close my inventory and grab my bone crutch, and slowly stand up so I can continue not being lunch for those things.

I freeze when I hear a loud sound directly behind me. It sounded like a bark, but nothing like any dog I had ever heard or like a dilophosaurus. I slowly turn, partially in fear of what I'd see and partially that I was incapable of turning quickly at the moment. Three of the doglike things stand there, teeth bared and looking ready to pounce. I stiffen and tighten my grip on the bone I'm using as a cane, prepared to either swing it or try and stab at least one of them if they jump at me. None of them move, all seemingly waiting for me to make the first move. I do nothing except move my foot so I'm better balanced. They all watch intently, and as I move my leg one of them actually takes a half step back. It's almost as if they have no idea what to do. As far as they can tell, I've probably just come back from the dead. I doubt they've ever dealt with anything that's resurrected itself, or seemingly done so before.

Intent on taking whatever advantage I have, I set my worse foot on the ground and put weight on it, gritting my teeth at the pain. I don't crumple this time, and I force myself to stand without shaking. I raise the bone, holding it like one would a baseball bat, and they shrink back and tense their muscles, prepared to jump out of the way or attack me before I can strike again. My implant isn't close enough to access it, but if I move to access it, it will give them plenty of time to attack me, and leave me defenseless while I'm in it.

One of them finally takes a step forward, and I throw the bone with all the strength I can without toppling myself. At the same moment, the one that stepped forward had pounced. The rib struck it midair, striking it directly in the face. It yelped in surprise and pain and twisted in the air, landing on its back while the bone ricocheted into the nearby shrubbery. It's comrades yelped in alarm and dashed out of the ricochet bone's way. As fast as I could, I withdrew the axe from my inventory while the one I struck scrambled to its feet and dashed out of my reach. I brandished the weapon as menacingly as I could and all three of them withdrew into the bushes, though I know they won't abandon injured prey that easily, I'm not lucky enough for that.

I drop to one knee to stop putting the weight on my bad leg almost immediately. I check it and see that one of the gashes is still bleeding, but none of the rest have opened back up. The bruise is fully formed now, an ugly dark discolored band a good four or five inches across on my lower leg. My other leg is doing a little better. None of the punctures are bleeding, and a similar bruise ring encircles my leg. It's smaller than the other, having a clear separation where it's left side and right side bit down rather than just being an overly wide swath. I walk over to where my thrown cane landed on my knees. I prop myself up and start hobbling forward again, putting distance between me and my attackers.

I force myself through the bushes, using the axe to hack through them with ease. It may make a rather apparent trail to follow, but at the moment I'm more concerned getting through the undergrowth than being incognito. I don't know where I'm trying to go; I have no idea where Moth and Shannon are. I consider calling for them, but it would more likely draw unwanted attention. If Moth is to be believed, Allosaurus, bears the size of trucks, Terror Birds, Saber tooth cats, and Raptors, and whatever a Pulmonoscorpis is are all lurking around out here, along with who knows what else.

A screech like a chicken from Hell bursts from somewhere to my right. Immediately I turn left and run as fast I can. Whatever that is, I don't feel the need to know. I fresh bolt of pain shoots up my leg as I stub my foot on a stone jutting from the ground. My leg crumples underneath me and I collapse to my knees. My bone cane jams into my armpit painfully, jamming into my upper ribs, before sliding out from under me too. I bite my tongue and groan in pain, clutching my injured foot, careful not touch my previous injury. I shout in surprise, panic, and terror as the three dog creatures from before leap from the underbrush, charging directly towards me. I swing the axe blindly, and they scrabble to a stop before running around me without pause. I whip around, expecting them to be right behind me and preparing to attack, but I only see their tails and haunches retreating into the undergrowth. I turn back in confusion only to see a huge bird standing over me, peering down at me, looking rather surprised at my 'sudden appearance.'

Its probably seven feet tall and built like and ostrich but far more bulky and robust. It's wings are small, but it's feet are huge, with massive claws. It's head sits atop a long thick neck, and unlike an ostriches dainty skull, it has a huge bill that looks every bit as deadly as a guillotine. It's neck and face is bare and covered in almost scaly looking leathery skin, but the back of its head and the rest of its body is covered in feathers. It's got a sparse mohawk of stiff feathers on its head and stiff feathers on its wings, but otherwise all of its feathers are long and downy.

I don't move except to hold the axe even tighter, my knuckles turning white from the force I'm applying. My heart is beating so fast I could swear it was vibrating rather than pulsing. I hold my breath, not even daring to breath lest it set off the massive avian standing over me. It tilts it's head in a gesture that I likely would have found cute if it wasn't being used by a seven foot tall apex predator. It leans down and pokes me with its beak, then rears back and watches me in curiosity. I remain perfectly still, praying that it finds me boring and continues chasing after the dog creatures. It leans down towards me again and turns its head sideways, sniffing at my injured legs with its nostril at the base of its beak. It claps its beak, opening and closing it's bill rapidly. It rears its head back and adjusts its stance, and I realize it's about to slam that butcher knife of a beak down on me. I swing the axe on reflex, and I hit the terror bird in the throat with the flat of the blade.

The terror bird lurches backwards and coughs loudly, it's entire body heaving as its windpipe recovered from forcefully being slammed shut. I grab my bone cane and get to my feet, hobbling towards a nearby tree as fast as I can. I hear the bird shriek behind me angrily but I don't stop. I sidestep as sharply as I can, and the terror bird crashes into the bushes beside me, its beak bludgeoning through the woody plants with ease. With as much strength as I can, I swing the axe at the bird, striking it in the beak with the blade. It shrieks in pain and jerks its head back, revealing a newly formed and painful looking cleft in the side of its beak. It jumps into the air several feet off the ground, flapping its wings furiously. My eyes go wide and I try to jump back, but I'm too late. With a single deft move that puts Jackie Chan to shame, the Terror Bird kicks me in the chest. The wind is knocked out of my lungs and I'm sent flying through the air for a brief moment before I come crashing down directly on a woody fern. Something small and feathery shrieks and dashes away from where it was apparently hiding under the fern. The Terror bird chases after it for a moment, leaving me stunned on the ground in pain. It apparently doesn't succeed as it screeches indignantly and claps its beak several times before stalking back over to me.

It rears up, intent on caving in my chest with a blow from its oversized beak. I swing the axe, catching the bird in the base of its foot with blade. It cuts into its scales easily, leaving a bright bleeding red gash across the top of its foot. It screams in pain and yanks it foot away before stomping on my hand with its oversized feet. I scream in pain as its claws dig into my wrist. They aren't incredible sharp, dilos claws probably being sharper, but with the force behind it they dig into my skin. It lifts it foot, then stomps down on my hand again, crushing it painfully under the force. The bird removes its foot and places it on my chest, and pushes down, holding me and preventing me from getting away or pulling another saving move. I thrash and weekly punch at its scaly legs, but it is unmoved, and rears back, intent on killing me then and there. I screwed my eyes shut and prepare for the worst, silently praying that I die quickly and not slowly.

Like a furry, toothy missile out of nowhere, a dire wolf crashes into the clearing with a practical roar. The Terror Bird wheels around and rears up, flapping its wings and shrieking aggressively. The wolf is unfazed and leaps at the phorusrhacid without even flinching. The bird is toppled over with a shriek of rage as the wolf digs it teeth into the birds small wing. It kicks at the wolf, trying to force it off of itself or split open its guts. The wolf twists it body out of the way and shifts its bite to the birds neck, clamping down on its throat and pinning it to the ground. The Terror Bird screams and kicks, but the wolf refuses to let go. It's thrashing slowly grows more and more feeble and its cries grow weaker until it becomes still. The wolf holds on for a short time longer before releasing the now deceased Terror Bird.

It trots towards me and I feebly reach for the axe, but my injured hand fails to grab the tool. The wolf stands over me, looking down at me with its dark eyes. Idly I not that this is the third carnivore that's looked down at me like this today, then mentally berate myself for such a pointless last thought. I brace myself for a cruel set of teeth around my throat, but instead a wide wet tongue licks my face, coating me with almost enough slobber to drown in. I gag and spit, peering up at the wolf with a bewildered expression. The wolf almost seems to be smiling and its eyes are full of recognition. I realize with a start that it's Moth's wolf, and feel like a moron for not recognizing it upon sight. Tears stream down my face as I wrap my arms around its neck. "You magnificent wolf. You couldn't have got here five minutes ago could you?" I say through tears into his neck. The wolf growls lowly, but in a more friendly way rather than aggressive.

An armored Shannon suddenly bursts into the clearing from the same way the wolf came from, panting under her helmet, weapon drawn. I startle and the wolf snaps his head in her direction. She spares a single glance at the dead Terror Bird, then deposits her javelin into her implant. She walks over to me and the wolf and removes her helmet. She squats down and inspects the injury on my leg silently, then checks my hand for broken bones. She stands and is silent for a moment then solemnly says, "You have to be the luckiest human being to ever live." Then adds, "I'm starting to think you're incapable of dying."

I snort and chuckle under my breath. "I'd beg to differ. It feels like I'm already dead right now. Every part of my body hurts right now." She rolls her eyes and puts her helmet back on. She carefully helps me to my feet, and then nearly put me onto the wolf's back without assistance, my arms too sore to pull myself up and my injured hand continuing to be mostly useless. She pats the wolf on the neck and removes an axe from her inventory, then sets to butchering the Terror Bird's dead body. I pet the wolf's side while atop it, much to his appreciation.

Shannon climbs atop the wolf in front of me, the severed head of the Terror Bird tied up with rope to her hip. After a moment of hesitation, I put my arm around her waist, not wanting to fall off while I'm this badly injured. She glances back at me, then presses her heels into the wolf's sides. We start forward, but she stops us almost immediately, to both me and the wolf's confusion. She looks down at something on the ground, then turns back to me with an accusatory look. "Did you steal one of my axes?" My blood runs cold and I fumble for an answer as she leans over to pick it up off the ground.

 **A/ N:**

 **Well was that enough action and near death to sate your rage at the time it took to write this? No? Well then I have nothing left I can give you. I think that was as much danger and death defying as I can muster into a chapter unless an all out tribe war broke out.**

 **If all goes well, it should only be one more chapter until the next proper story arc begins. Thanksfest will finally be getting started, and we can get into some hopefully at least somewhat emotional backstories, along with new characters being introduced, if only minor ones. I'm going to attempt to get the next chapter out within two weeks, though if I can get my stuff together and nothing cataclysmic happens in my life I'm hoping to get it out before then.**

 **Oh yeah, also, NEW LONGEST CHAPTER! Personal victory!**

 **Deadmanrevival: Thanks for the name suggestion, that's both very close to and better than what I was planning on using. Thanks a bunch for your other review as well! :)**

 **DaDog: Thanks for the complement. I do not plan on having Tek Tier in the story, as I feel that the Tek Tier is highly overpowered, and would kind of ruin the feel of the story if it suddenly went from survival and bows and arrows and spears to space age technology and rocket launchers and jet packs. I still think the Tek Tier is awesomely cool though.**

 **Guests and Everyone else who left a review, thanks a ton for leaving a review. I read all of them, and I apologize if I didn't answer a question or thank you by name, but some of you guys questions I can't answer yet, like if a certain dinosaur is going to show up, because I don't have all the details mapped out until I actually right it out, and I'm currently tweaking my planned storyline, so I can't guarantee a lot of things yet.**

 **Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, let me know of any horrible grammar errors I've made. Comments and questions are very appreciated and encouraged, and have a great day, night, or whenever you're readings this. Or don't, it's entirely up to you and I can't tell you what to do.**


	15. Chapter 15- Sonticus

"Shannon, whatever you're about to do, please don't. I've already nearly died today, is that not enough punishment?" The girl says nothing as she inspects the blades edge, running her hand down the metal. She turns back to me with a glare almost as intense as the dilo's, and my blood runs as cold as ice.

"Move your arm. Now." I'm confused for a brief moment, then I realize what she meant. I jerk my arm away from around her waist as fast as I can. She doesn't say anything, but deposits the axe into her inventory. I breath a sigh of relief, the immediate threat to my life removed. She abruptly puts her hand on my shoulder and I freeze. She's staring directly at me and doesn't say anything. Suddenly she shoves me hard. With a yelp I fall of the back of the wolf and hit the ground shoulder first. I barely contain a scream as I gain a new bruise and my injuries all flare up at once. Shannon laughs as I try to get to my feet, obviously finding it hilarious. "That's payback. Now get back on before I leave you for the hyenas."

I struggle to my feet, my bad leg mentally screaming at me for it. The wolf crouched down and I silently thanked him for making it easier for me. I pull myself up onto his back with my good arm, and manage to struggle into a sitting position. The wolf stands back up to full height and Shannon glances back at me. Without a word she presses her heels into the wolf's sides and he charges forward. I nearly fall off him again and I grab onto Shannon's waist to stop myself. She shoots a glare back at me, but she doesn't move to remove my arm, so I assume that she's allowing it since I'm hurt.

The wolf charges forward through the forest, which actually seems quite serene now that I'm no longer running for my life. The forest is still quiet, the only animal calls being the low reverberating ones that seem to carry out over the entire forest. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the makers of the calls were miles away. Otherwise the animal life was rather silent, most of them probably fleeing from the simple presence of the giant wolf. A pair of pterosaurs flew overhead, though they seemed to ignore us, more interested in snapping at the small animals clinging to the giant trees.

I'm not sure how long we rode, but I don't think it was very long. I feel light headed, but not to the point where I feel I'm going to pass out. Probably from the blood loss I idly note. I'm feeling oddly calm about it all, even though I'm pretty sure my leg is still bleeding or has opened back up. I don't know what exactly it would feel like if I went into shock, though I know it's not good if I do. I really hope Shannon or Moth know how to treat injuries like this. It would stand to reason for at least one of them to know how considering they live out in the middle of nowhere. If they don't then infection will probably get me before blood loss does.

I realize with a startle that we've stopped. "Hey, Idiot. I said can you hear me? You'd better not be dying." I blink and shake my head as if the motion would somehow negate blood loss.

"I can hear you. I'm not feeling so hot though." She turns back to me and seems to frown, then turns forward again. She presses into the wolf's sides again and he starts forward, a little slower than before as far as I can tell.

"Alright. We're almost back to where Moth is. Keep alive until then. We'll get you patched up for now and get you some help in town later." I nod and tighten my grip around her waist, worried I'm going to fall or pass out. We continue forward, though I can barely tell what's going past us. Everything is a blur and I focus on just making sure I don't fall off or let go of Shannon. With a distinct abruptness, at least from my perspective, we've stopped again and I hear Shannon saying something, but I just can't quite make out what she said. I don't think she was addressing me though. That's good because I don't think I could give a properly coherent answer like this.

My world spins as I'm pulled off the wolf. I don't hit the ground as hard as I did when Shannon shoved me, but I could definitely feel it even like this. I hear Shannon shouting again, but I still can't tell what she's trying to say. She stops for a little while and I hear I a higher pitched voice, Moth's maybe? Her voice seems much more calm than Shannon's, or at least not as loud. I focus and pick out a few words, but the rest is still indecipherable. I feel pressure on my legs, but I can tell it's sort of numbed, like it I should feel it a lot more than I do. My vision dims, and it was already pretty blurry. I close my eyes and it feels a lot better not to be straining them trying to see. I focus on my breathing, which I noticed had slowed down some.

Suddenly I feel a sharp stinging pain in my face and my eyes shoot open. Even though that was numbed too, I felt it a lot more than my legs. I can still feel the sting but it's started down from a stinging to a dull burning sensation. Apparently they don't want me to close my eyes. I guess that makes sense though. They can't tell I'm just trying to stop my eyes from hurting and not passing out. I hear one of them say something and I feel them push down on my arms. I'm confused and try to move them, finding them actually responding a bit. In a moment I find out why they held down my arms.

It feels like white hot molten lead is being poured into my leg. I scream or at least try to, but I'm not sure any sound actually comes out. I try to thrash and make it stop, but with how poorly my body is responding they manage to hold me in place. The white hot burn agonizingly slowly cools to only red hot, then slowly down to a dull burning, and then to an uncomfortable heat. I pant and breath heavily, and I can feel my body shaking. That was arguably worse than the ordeal to get the injuries in the first place. My leg doesn't hurt as much now though, just that uncomfortable hot sensation.

My eyes start to hurt again and my vision is blurry, or at least a little more than before. I close my eyes and brace myself for the stinging pain again, but this time they let me close my eyes in peace. Apparently they're finished. That or they've given up on me. I hope not though, I don't want to die alone out here. The dilo probably wouldn't forgive me if I did, and if I ever meet him in the afterlife he'd probably do worse than glare at me.

Those are my last thoughts before I drift off into quiet darkness. I don't know how long I was sleeping or unconscious, as I'm not sure if I fell asleep or passed out. I look up, but instead of sky, I see an almost unnatural dark grey surface. I try to sit up, but my body flat out denies me. Everything aches and stings, all of it feeling fresh and raw after being numb. I manage to move my head though with only slight protest, and I can feel a wad of something stuck to the back of it. I can't move my hands to remove it though without excruciating aching and pain, so I try to ignore it. I turn my head to the side and see another grey surface. I blink and squint and see that the grey surface is actually brick, probably carved from stone. I turn my head the other way and I see Moth and the Wolf sitting next to a small fire about ten feet away. They're next to another stone wall, but there's a sizeable hole in it, large enough for the wolf to fit through but not enough for Fatty to fit.

I try to call to her, but my voice is silent. I try again and manage to cough. Moth and the wolf both lift their heads and look around before realizing that it's me. Moth stands quickly and runs over to me. "How are you feeling?" I blink hard and try to answer.

"Not...good. Not... dead... though." It physically hurts my throat but I manage to speak. She nods and smiles, then sighs in relief.

"Okay. Can you turn your head the other way? Shannon told me to check if you were bleeding if you woke up." I turn my head so she can see the back of it. I feel her peel off whatever was attached to the back of my head slowly, probably so as not to tear open whatever injury I have back there. The air feels really cold on the back of my head, but I ignore it for the time being. She puts the pad back on, and while it feels colder now than it did before it's better than how cold it felt without it on. "You can look back up now. I'm going to check your legs now." I turn my head to face upright again and wait for the feeling of cold air on my legs. She slowly peels off the bandages that I didn't notice until now and exposes them to air. Despite it being pretty warm here, the air still feels cold on the cuts and bite marks on my legs. Several moments later she puts the bandages back on. "You don't look like you're bleeding anymore, which is good. Shannon thought you weren't going to make it. I was worried too."

I nod and manage to say, "Me too." She giggles quietly and sits down next to me. She doesn't say anything but very carefully pats my shoulder in a comforting gesture, mindful of all the bruises. I smile to her and busy myself thinking of a new pun appropriate for the situation. I'm not sure if she noticed the smile but isn't it the thought that counts or something like that? Something suddenly occurs to me and I turn my head to face her. She looks down at me with a somewhat confused look on her face. "Which... one of you... slapped me?" It still feels like I'm gargling sand while I talk, but comparatively it was like gargling gravel the first time so it's not as bad. Moth pales briefly and then goes red in the face.

"Umm, we'll, umm. That was me. I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you but you closed your eyes and you looked like you were dying and I panicked. Please don't be mad at me." She practically squeaks at a million miles per hour. I blink in surprise, not expecting Moth to be able to spout off a sentence that quickly, and not expecting Moth to have been able to deliver such a painful smack. The wolf glances over at us from his seat by the fire but doesn't move to stand up. Moth herself looks like she's nearly worked herself to tears.

I move my arm very slowly so as to avoid straining myself and pat her on the shoulder a few times. "Don't cry... you probably saved my life... if you hadn't done that... I probably... wouldn't have opened... them again. I'm not... mad over that." She smiles a little and wiped her eyes. She moves as if to hug me, but then remembers how badly I'm bruised, especially from getting basically drop kicked by a giant bird in the chest. So instead she sort of hugs my arm gently. "By the way... where are we?" She looks around for a moment then let's go of my arm.

"I don't really know exactly. It's some kind of ruins. Shannon had me stay here while she went looking for you."

"Are we still in the Redwoods?" Moth nods and points through the hole in the wall, through which I can see some of the huge trees a short distance away. Rather obvious in hindsight. "Where's... Shannon and Fatty?"

"She took Fatty out to spray around the ruins and make sure there wasn't anything bad hanging around. She should be back any minute now." As if on cue the wolf stands and pads over to the hole in the wall. A moment later, the large body of Fatty plods into view, and Shannon jumps off his back with practiced ease. She walks in and gives the wolf a brief pat to his neck, while Fatty tries to squeeze into the semi- destroyed building with no success. The taller girl sees that I'm awake and walks over to me.

"Hey, you're awake. Is he still bleeding?" Moth shakes her head no, as do I. She nods in confirmation, then kneels down to check my leg wounds herself. I look down to see that the creatures teeth marks are very clearly emblazoned on my leg. They aren't bleeding though and the bruises seem to have dulled somewhat for lack of a better word. She wraps that bandage back on, tightening it slightly, then forcibly turns my head and removes the pad of bandages from the back of it. She doesn't say anything but presses around the injury with her fingers several times. She puts the pad back on and stands. "I know I said you were lucky before, but who or what did you make a deal with? Seriously." I shrug, or at least best I could while aching and on the ground.

"I have no idea... How come you gave me the okay even though I nearly died?"

"You were practically running on adrenaline. I'm surprised you could even stand with my help. I didn't know you screwed up your head either, and you apparently bled a lot more than I thought. I'm not a doctor you know."

"Could have... fooled me. The bandages look like they were done by a professional... What the heck was that stuff you put on them though?" She shrugs and withdraws a small glass bottle with a little bit of a maroon colored fluid in it.

"Medicinal brew. Strong medicine I got a while back. Never goes bad and works like a charm. It does burn a bit when you apply it though." I raise my eyebrows in disbelief.

"A bit? It felt like you were pouring liquid sun on me." She shrugs once more and puts the bottle back in her inventory.

"Well either you're a wuss or you're just sensitive to it. Some people are like that, I heard it had to do with your blood type or something. Infection isn't common here, but that'll make sure it won't set in. Even with bite marks like that you'll probably only get a few scars from the bigger cuts." I nod as she continues. "Usually you mix it with a little narcotic to make it burn less, but with how bad of shape you were in I didn't want to risk knocking you out. It probably would have killed you if it did."

"Well... thanks for not mixing any in then. Where are we anyway? Moth didn't know." Moth herself had gotten bored of our conversation and gone to sit with the wolf by the fire. Fatty had given up trying to fit inside and instead just lay outside, watching us with one of his eyes through the opening. Moth perked up when her name was mentioned, and she scooted a little closer to hear us.

"Well it's a ruin. Though you probably figured that much out. It was made ages ago, long before anybody alive was here. It's fallen down a bit with the past few storms, but it's still sturdy enough to protect us from anything short of a Megalosaurus or a Mammoth. Nobody lives out here though, it's way too dangerous. Almost every kind of carnivore on the island lives up here. Which is why we are staying the night here, and not trying to get back home in the dark. I don't want to get eaten by a drop cat or a megalosaurus, and you're already half eaten. We leave as soon as it's light though. Fatty's spray should last long enough, though he's paranoid so he'll probably get up to spritz near the door if he's got any juice left." With that she pulls a small blanket from her implant and tosses it at me. I try to catch it but I don't move fast enough and my hand is still somewhat messed up so it gracefully lands over my head.

I hear Moth giggle and I pull the offending cloth off of me. Shannon sits down, leaning against the wolf, and pulls out a second blanket to cover up her and Moth. Despite having just woken up maybe twenty or thirty minutes ago, I'm exhausted, and I fall asleep almost as soon as I lay back down.

 **A/ N:**

 **Okay, I know I said two weeks but hear me out guys. I had the chapter almost finished over two weeks ago, but I decided that I hated it and deleted it all to redo it. Then I forgot for like a week, and when I remembered I needed to rewrite it I got stuck with a bunch of homework and tests and life stuff and only finished it just now. I am so sorry for the long wait and I know these are a bunch of poor excuses. I apologize also for the chapter if it was boring, but we're so close to the fun part so you'll just have to bear with me. I'm not going to lie and promise that the story will be updated in two weeks, but know that unless I say otherwise, I'm not letting this story die, no matter how much it may seem between updates.**

 **Thuzan117 First off, the island in this is a whole lot bigger than the one in game, considering it took literally an entire day of walking for our protagonist to cross the Eastern Plains when it doesn't take very long to cross it in game even with the accelerated day cycle. The larger island means that any human structures would be much farther apart. Plus, unlike the game, you actually have to build stuff here even if you can carry entire trees and boulders in your wrist, meaning structures are a lot scarcer and more deliberate in where they're placed in general. Plus buildings and structures break down and fall over or get knocked down or rot or get washed away unless they were built ludicrously fortified like the Redwood Ruins are. I do plan on having the protagonist have sone 'alone time' in the future, but I thought at the time it would be pretty boring to read and was getting bored of writing about him talking to himself occasionally and walking across the island for days at a time. yes, the taming system is technically present here, and I will much more thoroughly explain how I've implemented it in later chapters, though I will say now it is not quite like it is in Ark.**

 **Dmatrix98 thank you for the comment :) I'm very glad you enjoyed the story so far, at some point I plan on going back and fixing all the little mistakes, but I haven't gotten to it yet**

 **Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, let me know of any horrible grammar errors I've made. Comments and questions are very appreciated and encouraged, and have a great day, night, or whenever you're readings this. Or don't, it's entirely up to you and I can't tell you what to do.**


	16. Chapter 16- Insciente

The sun rises slowly, spreading its light over the island. A beam of the warm and welcoming light shines through a broken hole in a stone wall and lands unwelcomingly directly on a sleeping figure. They wake and toss their blanket off themselves with a groan then stretch. They looked around them and counted their party. After assuring that everyone was accounted for she removed a bundle from the diamond on her wrist. She promptly broke the contents into three pieces, then removed a flask from her wrist as well. She walked over to the smallest party member and pushed her with her foot, which was met with a grumble and the messy haired girl to sit up. Shannon tossed her a piece of the bread which landed in her lap. Moth promptly ate it and took the flask blindly. She then walked over and nudged the other member of the party like she had done with Moth. He didn't budge, and remained soundly unconscious. She tried once more to no avail. With a sigh of frustration she then took a step back and threw the piece of bread as hard as she could, aiming for their head.

So I was awoken by a piece of bread being pitched into my temple at high speed. I woke with a yelp and tried to get up, flailing to get my bearings in the dark. I heard laughter and I turned towards it, then ripped the blanket off my head. I wheeled around in confusion before remembering where we were and that my injuries still hurt. I promptly lay back down as my various bruises and aches begin screaming at me for the sudden movements. Shannon smirks and simply stands there, waiting for me to finish my little spectacle. I glare at her from my position on the ground and sigh. "Grab your food idiot. We're on the move in ten." She says, then she walks out of my field of view to begin packing up and getting ready to go.

I sit there for a moment before facing the inevitable and sit up. My aching body strongly disagrees with my choice but I wait it out until the ache becomes manageable. I look around for whatever Shannon hit me with, supposedly food, but there's no trace of it. I grab the blanket and shake it out and a hard piece of bread and crumbs fall into my lap. I shake the blanket once more for good measure then set it aside. I crunch on the hard bread which seems to be all crust and finish it quickly, and then eat a few of the larger crumbs after a brief moment of debate.

I attempt to get to my feet, and my body once more disagrees with that decision. My legs don't hurt as much as yesterday, and I can't see them with the bandages on them, but I can definitely feel the bruises. Mustering up my will and upper body strength I force myself to my feet and to my great surprise and relief I don't fall immediately. I take a step forward and my leg threatens to give out on me, but I manage to keep from falling. I awkwardly pick up both blankets off the ground, the one I slept on and the one that I slept in, and hobble over to where Shannon is doing something to Fatty's saddle. She turns to me and takes the blankets, which dissappeared in a dull flash as they were deposited in her inventory. "Moth has water if she hasn't drank it all. She's half asleep. You can probably just take it from her and she won't notice or care enough to take it back."

Then I hobble over to where the wolf and Moth are. Moth is leaning up against the wolf, nearly laying on him, almost drunkenly sipping from the flask, spilling almost as much on the wolf's side as she's drinking. The wolf is clearly not happy about it, but he doesn't do anything besides grumble and turns to look at me as I approach. I sit down, which is more like falling in a careful manner than anything else. I slowly remove the flask from her hands and she groans but just lays back in defeat. She is really not a morning person. The water barely half fills the flask, but there's plenty to drink for now. I take a quick drink when Shannon walks over and produces a large slab of meat, which the wolf gladly accepts and begins tearing into. I feel a bit jealous that the wolf gets better food than we do, but he is going to be carrying at least one of us back and is a carnivore so bread isn't exactly food of choice for him. I take another drink from the flask then pass it to Shannon, who takes it with a nod and drinks from it for a moment then puts it back into her inventory. "Moth, get up. We're heading out." She gently shoves the smaller girl who sits up with a grumble. She lets out a long dramatic sigh and blows a strand of hair out of her face, then stands up and rubs her face.

Knowing it's time to go, the wolf stands up and shakes himself, having finished his meal. Following his lead, I manage to stand up, only needing to prop myself up on him when I had gotten to both feet and was standing on one. I limp over to Fatty as Moth mounts him, climbing into the saddle with less ease than usual. Undoubtedly from having just woken up. I walk over and grab onto the saddle, pulling myself up with all my might, but I fail completely to get up. I'm suddenly shoved from behind and forcefully put on the saddle. I flail for a moment before regaining my balance and not falling off the side. Shannon smirks up at me then puts on her rusty colored helmet and mounts the dire wolf.

Instead of taking off like she did when we left their house, Shannon and the wolf started off at a much slower pace, enough that Fatty could keep up with a bit of effort. Said pachyrhinosaurus grunted and rumbled as he followed, probably missing his usual naps and buffet of berries and having to settle for whatever leaves or fruit he found in the area. His plodding was slow and rhythmic, though it was just enough swaying to send a strike of pain up my chest as if I had a large bruise that was repeatedly being pressed. Probably from getting kicked by a giant bird. I'm more surprised that my ribs weren't pulverized and actually glad it just seems like a lot of bruising rather than the alternative. My hand still hurts, but it's actually responsive now rather than being mostly limp. My pinky hurts pretty bad though when I move it, so I probably ended up with a stress fracture from it being stomped on. It doesn't look like it has any lumps of bone jutting out like you normally have with a split fracture, but I'm definitely not a doctor so I can only hope it isn't actually broken.

We continue on for ages in the quiet. If Fatty didn't leave footprints I'd swear that we were going in circles, but his footprints stretched off in a vaguely straight path behind us, proving otherwise. It seems a lot of places here are like that. Part of it I'd imagine is that I never really learned the areas and the landmarks, considering I basically just walked for three days without stopping for long periods except to sleep at night. I wonder how far I've gotten from the beach where I woke up. It seems like ages, but it wasn't a week ago. I've really been busy, running from dinosaurs, befriending a narcicistic dilophosaurus, getting found by Shannon and Moth, and now almost being eaten by not-hyenas and a terror bird. I wonder if Shannon and Moth had that intense of a greeting from nature when they got here. Shannon could probably have survived that easily, but Moth I'm not so sure. Aside from apparently being good at sewing and weaving she doesn't really seem to have any survival skills from what I've seen. She's really nice, but I doubt a hungry carnotaurus cares about that. I'll have to ask about it sometime. I probably just ran through every single carnivore's territory between here and the beach. That would probably be my luck.

We rode on quietly in the dim light as the day slowly brightened and the animal calls slowly increase in volume and frequency. Suddenly a loud familiar hissing sound rings out and I recognize it immediately. I twist in the saddle, looking for the dilo that had apparently made his way all the way out here. A short way off, probably thirty feet away I see the small carnivore standing over a scrap of meat and hissing at one of the small bat-like pterosaurs flapping overhead. I'm about to call out to the therapod when I realize that instead of red and blue green, it's a much brighter yellow tinted green color with a violet frill and light purplish grey stomach. I blink in mild surprise. It's pretty self evident in hindsight but it's still odd to see another dilophosaurus considering I'd only run into one in the entire time I've been out here. The wild dilo jumps up and snaps at the pterosaur, who shrieks angrily before flapping away to find easier food, leaving the dinosaur to its meal.

Shannon gave it a glance before ignoring it entirely, obviously not deeming it dangerous enough to give her full attention. Fatty rumbled unhappily as we walked by it, but didn't try to spray his chemicals, meaning either he wasn't threatened or he's used all of it. Moth watched with mild worry, but considering that we were on the back of a chubby multi-ton herbivore larger than a rhinoceros we're pretty safe from the hundred pound therapod. It turned and watched us as we passed, but didn't try to attack us or spit venom, and ran off into the underbrush after grabbing its morsel. Compared to what I've seen over the past few days, dilos don't seem nearly s dangerous as they used to. I'd still not like to mess with one unarmed though. Their teeth are plenty sharp even if they don't pack as much force as bigger carnivores.

About half an hour passed and nothing of incident happened. Every now and then a small animal would scatter from the undergrowth, though they usually darted away unseen. A large birdlike animal the size of a turkey but slimmer and with a long dinosaur-like tail jumped out from under a fern and darted up a tree, screeching all the while. Fatty grunted in surprise when it dashed in front of his snout, but when he saw that it was such a small animal he just bellowed irritably and trudged on. "What was that thing?" I ask Shannon, raising my voice to be sure she heard. She slowed down a bit so she was closer and didn't have to shout her answer.

"Just an Archaeops. Harmless bug eaters."

"Was it a bird or a dinosaur? I couldn't tell." Shannon shrugs.

"It depends on who you're talking to. Some people say it's a dinosaur because it has teeth, but so do gulls and no one questions that they're birds. Doesn't really matter though, it doesn't change what it is." I nod and she speeds back up again, taking point once more.

As she did so, a herd of deer, each easily the size of a Clydesdale, suddenly charges past. The wolf jumps back with a snarl and several deer veer on their path to keep clear of him. Fatty grinds to a halt, stopping quite abruptly for an animal of his size. Shannon drew her bow and notched an arrow, but didn't shoot, holding the bowstring back. Instead she waited, aiming in the direction they came. The last of the herd passed, and if I had to guess, the group was at least twenty strong. Shannon still waited, and me and Moth both watched in confusion. One last deer suddenly appeared and Shannon let the arrow fly. The projectile struck the herbivore in the chest, embedding itself to its fletching. The deer stumbled, losing its footing as it bled profusely. The wolf pounced, knocking the deer on its side and grabbing it by the throat. It clamped down and in moments the deer was dead. Moth made a face of disgust and turned away, and I did the same. As the wolf began butchering the stocky animal I was made aware I nearly suffered a similar fate. "Did you have to do that Shannon?" Moth asks, clearly upset.

"I didn't exactly mean to do it Moth. When you see a bunch of animals running in one direction there's usually something chasing them. I expected to be shooting at a Sabertooth or a Terror bird. There's no point wasting resources, and we need everything we can trade we can get. We're going to town a day earlier than I planned to be sure hyena chow over here didn't pop a lung or break his skull or anything I can't fix." Moth sighs and nods, clearly unhappy but understanding why Shannon did it. I get an idea that might work out really well or really poorly.

"She only did it to be sure you were safe. You know she holds you very near and deer to her heart." Shannon stiffens and the scowl on her face is instantaneous. Moth however has the exact opposite reaction. She tries her hardest not to show it, but her giggling betrays her. Seems like the plan was a victory. Shannon clearly was unhappy, but worst case scenario involves her pointing the bow at me, so it wasn't a loss in that respect. Shannon and the wolf pull ahead twenty feet and begin trekking on again, her face undoubtedly a scowl all the while. "I mean it's pretty obvious considering how much she fawns over you." Another giggle betrays that Moth found it humorous while Fatty starts forward to follow Shannon and the wolf. "What's the matter? Antler you finding this funny?" A full blown laugh erupts from the smaller girl and she covers her face with her hands. Another archaeops screeches from the brush somewhere off to the left, probably startled by her sudden loud noise. "Feeling better?" She nods, still laughing and her hands over her face.

"You're too good at puns." She says between laughs and muffled behind her hands. I shrug, then realize she can't see it.

"It takes practice. Wordplay is a matter of figuring out which words sound like others and waiting to use them. I come up with puns when I'm bored and wait for the situation to use them in." Moth's laughing has settled down now and she's removed her hands from her face to adjust Fatty's course. The ceratopsian has been loosely following the wolf without Moth guiding him, but he's not exactly a keen tracker. The undergrowth is pretty dense at points, and right now Shannon and the wolf are only visible occasionally through the leaves and branches. The wolf despite his size doesn't disturb the brush that much when he goes through it. Fatty however thoroughly stomps the undergrowth under his bulk, leaving a much more obvious trail where he goes.

"So you plan them before you use them? Why?" She asks, turning in the saddle to look back at me. I shrug.

"It's easier than making them up on the spot. I do that too but they aren't always as good as when I plan them." She laughs.

"I think you put too much thought into this. You could probably find better stuff to do."

"Eh, I probably could but I don't mind." She gives me a quizzical look then giggles while trying to give me a disappointed one. "See, that was awful. I didn't plan that one." She sighs, suppressing another giggle, and Fatty let's out a groan that sounds like he's sighing along with her. I'd imagine that if Shannon heard that earlier she wouldn't have saved me from the hyenas. Even I admit that was a poor one, but at least Moth found it kind of funny.

We talk for a little while until the conversation just sort of trails off. Instead we just enjoy the sounds of prehistoric nature. I look around, hoping to spot at least some of the creatures that are making the beautiful, ominous, and bizarre sounds. At one point I think I see something brightly colored moving about forty or fifty feet away and I point it out to Moth. She squint for a moment, then the thing moves and reveals itself to be the back plates of a dinosaur anyone would recognize. The huge stegosaurus, probably a few feet longer than a trike if that, but taller, having longer hind limbs and a more horizontal body if that makes sense. Its plates gave it about two feet extra height with the largest, and it's tail spikes are massive. Instead of four though, it has six, angled sideways like the elongated teeth of a chainsaw. Its body is a dull brown, the color of dust, with wide mud colored bands, shoulders, head and neck, with green mottling on its legs and lower body. In contrast with its bland body coloration, its plates are a striking navy blue with a magenta and red edging to them. The stegosaurus meanders across the open patch of ground, its muscled tail swinging back and forth slowly as it walks, accidentally tearing a few branches of some shrubbery with the spikes. It sniffs out a large fern and digs into, its beaked head making short work of the soft plant. We don't stop though, and soon the huge herbivore is left behind.

We travel for probably twenty or so minutes without anything else interesting happening. My body aches and even though I just slept for quite a while my body is still tired. It feels like even if I sleep for a week I'm not going to get rid of that exhausted feeling. "Hey, I'm zoning out back here. If I fall asleep will you make sure I don't fall?"

"Yeah I'll make sure. We're just going to be walking home for about the next two or three hours. I'll wake you up when we almost get there if you fall asleep."

 **A/ N: No April fools chapter if yall were hoping, sorry. So what did you guys think of this though? I know it's not much action and I apologize if it was boring compared to other chapters, but this is the final chapter we are going to be in the Redwood biome. I have one chapter planned before Thanksfest is finally here, but if I can muster up the willpower to make the chapter long enough it just might start towards the end of next chapter. I have a surprise twist that I can almost guarantee is going to come completely out of left field too. To be fair though it's less of a plot twist and more of just a surprise, that is unless you guys are like secretly detectives or wizards or something and have been predicting it for ages. In which case I would applaud you from behind my screen while quietly scowling that you foiled my surprise.**

 **ninjasquirtles your wish is granted if a mote longer than two weeks is soon. Thank you kindly from the compliments. If you want to read something really good try The War of Tooth and Spears by the Surviving Comedian. It's far better than mine at least in my opinion.**

 **rsclaymore okay, first things first, I probably should have established this a while ago instead of vaguely alluding to it. Moth is about twelve to thirteen, Shannon is probably sixteen to seventeen, and our protagonist is around fifteen to sixteen. Sorry to break it to you if you were hoping, but no, I have no plans to have the protagonist date Moth. And also sorry to break it to you if you were hoping, but no to the Scorched Earth too. Scorched Earth is a completely seperate place than the Ark, and you can't get to one from the other, at least by any means the humans inside could achieve. Thank you for the compliment too btw.**

 **Tall-Gothic-Guy You may rest assured that the dilo will be coming back quite soon.**

 **Narrow wing thank you for the motivational words, and yes, he is both the luckiest and unluckiest person that probably has ever lived.**

 **ShadowCat55 yes I am in fact writing this with my phone, and I'm bound to make errors with it. I'll go back and edit that right away.**

 **IjaiI I do apologize that my descriptions didn't make it clear what creatures they were, but if you could possibly write which ones you couldn't figure out, like from which chapter or where I mentioned it, I'd be glad to list them out in the next chapter's A/ N for you. As for sea creatures, yes I do plan on exploring the ocean, but with how my storyline is going currently its going to be quite a while before we see anything from the proper ocean**

 **Also, a question for you all. Would you guys be opposed to me adding in a few creatures that aren't from base Ark? I only have like three animals I want to add, and the largest of them is about the size of a badger or small dog. It's mostly for world building, because it's difficult to build a functioning, or at least somewhat believable ecosystem with the mostly oversized creatures in Ark. If you guys would rather I didn't that's perfectly fine too though.**

 **PS. So sorry for the huge authors note. A lot of you guys left reviews and its rude to ignore viewers.**

 **Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, let me know of any horrible grammar errors I've made. Comments and questions are very appreciated and encouraged, and have a great day, night, or whenever you're readings this. Or don't, as its entirely up to you and I can't tell you what to do.**


	17. Chapter 17- Recursus

"Hey, we're almost back. Wake up." I'm shaken rather abruptly by the shoulder and I startle. I raise my arms to get my balance and nearly topple sideways. Moth grabs my shoulder with one hand and tries to help pull me up, but she isn't strong enough to manage it herself. I grab the other side of the saddle and pull, managing to right myself and not fall off the back of Fatty. My chest is racked by a twinge of pain, and I'm reminded once more how awful it is to be injured and how much I'm already sick of it.

"Thanks, balance is not my friend." She giggles with a grin before turning back around and situation herself in the saddle, nearly having pulled herself out of place trying to help me. Fatty rumbles in his throat and snorts, apparently sick of the trip and the action more than I am. The chubby pachyrhinosaur had likely seen more of it the past two days than the practical rest of his life. The dire wolf Shannon rode a good forty feet ahead seemed no worse for wear, but then again wolves are pursuit predators. For him this entire trip was likely not even highly strenuous exercise.

For me though, exhaustion seemed to be a now permanent facet of my body. Even after the rest I took my muscles still ache and my head still groans from the generous applications of trauma. The effects of my first few days of travelling seem to have caught up with me along with my near death experience. At the time I kind of just powered through, and fear, struggling to survive, and mild disbelief seem to be good for staving off hunger and exhaustion. I hope that this doesn't become a regular occurrence, but considering the circumstances that's probably too much to ask for.

I haven't seen any scars or anything on Shannon, but that doesn't mean she hasn't been injured badly or frequently. Apparently that medical stuff she poured on me is really effective and doesn't leave scars, or at least highly reduced scar tissue. Looking at my leg, which is already looking surprisingly better than when it was fresh, I would swear that my ankle would be covered in massive scars, but according to Shannon, only the biggest cuts would probably scar if at all. I have no idea how or what could possibly be in that medical stuff but it doesn't seem to be that unusual here. It makes me wonder what else is weird here. Well, aside from the various dinosaurs and creatures from across time, amnesia, and near magic arm implants.

Taking a moment to appreciate the world around me I notice the forest has thinned compared to when I fell asleep and is replaced with regular sized broadleaf trees, which seem almost small compared to the practical skyscrapers that populated the redwoods. The ground below is coated in a thin layer of leaves and softer looking grass tufts and leafy plants rather than pine needles, shrubs, and ferns. A few of the small batlike pterosaurs flutter about from tree to tree, and I catch a glimpse of some small fuzzy animal moving around in the undergrowth. The pterosaurs chirp and screech to one another in high pitches, like some discordant parody of birdsong, but it's not entirely unpleasant. Far off in the distance I see what appears to be a small herd of Parasaurolophus, though they're pretty obscured by shrubbery. Ahead I catch glimpses of the giant wolf's grey pelt as he trots tirelessly forward. Overall the forest seems much more welcoming than the redwood. Plus there aren't any not-hyenas down here to attack us and drag me off.

We ride for probably ten or twenty minutes as far as I can tell until we come upon a clearing. After a moment I realize that it isn't just a clearing, it's Shannon and Moth's yard of sorts. Shannon has already dismounted from the wolf, and removed her helmet. The wolf has lain down next to the fire pit, panting in the sunlight. Fatty rumbles and stomps forward with newfound vigor, heading straight for the berry trough. He immediately sinks his face into the pile of berries and begins practically gulping them down. Moth dismounted from the saddle, and about a minute later I dismount too after realizing they were waiting for me.

Shannon starts unstrapping and unbuckling various parts of the saddle, while Fatty grunts appreciably at the tight saddle being removed. Moth begins removing her armor, which disappears in dim blue flashes into her implant, leaving her in her regular clothes. By that time, Shannon has finished unstrapping the saddle and has hefted it over her shoulder. Considering the size of the saddle I'm honestly impressed that she's lifting it that easily. She carries it off to the other side of the wood and thatch building and while she does that, Moth shakes my arm.

"Hey, where's your dilo?" With mild alarm I whip around, looking for the theropod and wincing as my body screeches at the abrupt movement. I don't see the carnivore anywhere, though evident by the various birdlike footprints across the yard he's been here all day. His nest pile is gone too though. For a horrible moment I worry that he's up and abandoned me. Even though the dilophosaur was a jerk and tried to eat me at least once, he's kind of always been around.

With the sound of something wet splattering and a shout of "What the hell?!" Me, Moth, and Fatty all turn with a startle to the back of the house. Me and Moth share a glance for a moment, then we both run to see what happened. Well Moth ran, I hobbled as fast as I could without hurting myself, which wasn't much faster than my walking speed.

Fatty's saddle was on its side on the ground near a smallish shed that was surprisingly well hidden behind the house. Shannon was trying furiously to wipe a familiar sickly green slime off the front of her helmet as the dilo hooted in panic and practically dove into the shed. Moth had removed a piece of fabric or cloth from her inventory and was frantically trying to help Shannon. I hobbled over to the shed as quick I could and shielded my eyes as I entered the door way. No volley of spit came rocketing out so I moved my arm to see the dilo having tilted it's head in an almost doglike gesture. He barked in the way only a dinosaur could, as if confused. He shot a brief glare at Shannon, who quite obviously couldn't see it as she was wiping his venom from her eyes, then hopped out, knocking a clump of his nest out with him.

After promptly shoving the clump back into the shed, the dilo sniffed at my injured leg and circled around me, before giving me an odd sounding growl. He shoved me from behind and I stumbled forward, grabbing awkwardly onto wall of the shed to keep from being knocked over. "What the heck dude?" The theropod barked in response and shoved me again, this time forcing me to lose my grip on the wall. My feet abruptly betrayed me and my legs buckled, causing me to fall forward and into the shed. While I expected the shabby looking nest to be mostly sticks, as it turned out, it was surprisingly soft and only hurt somewhat rather than excruciatingly upon impact.

After tensing up with the pain for a few moments I managed to flip myself over to see the dilo attempting to push me further into the shed. Behind him Shannon had managed to clear her helmet of his venom and was holding a very sharp looking axe, seeming to contemplate bringing it down on the offending dinosaur. Panic shot through me and I attempted to sit up. "Shannon please don't hurt him, you scared him! He didn't know it was you." Immediately she turns to Moth, who had grabbed her arm and beat me to defending the dinosaur. Knowing the dinosaur though, he probably would have still spit even if he knew it was her, though I kept that to myself for the moment. Shannon didn't say anything for a few moments before putting away the axe.

"If that thing eats you, you deserve it. And if that saddle gets ruined I'm making a new one out of his hide." With that ultimatum she stormed off. Moth watched her go and seemed hesitant to follow after her.

"Are you going to be okay?" After a moment of hesitation of my own I nodded.

"Considering what I just went through, I think I'll be fine if he gets bitey. Plus I still have my spear and pointy rock." I lifted my left arm to show her my implant as if to prove it. She nodded and walked back around to the front of the house. After she was gone, I immediately raised my implant to my face to be sure I did have the spear and my rock. To my relief both were there, though I was also reminded of the swarm of ant shells still there. I shuddered at the thought that they were basically inside my arm, though my disgust was interrupted by a bark from the dilo.

He stood at the entrance of the shed, nosing the bandages wrapped around my ankles. Without warning he abruptly grabbed one in his teeth and tore it off with a vigorous shake of his head. I immediately jerked my leg back in panic, thinking he actually did plan on eating me. I had nearly pulled the spear from the implant when he looked up at me in an almost confused manner. I paused and he leaned down and sniffed at the injury again, surprisingly gently moving it to the side as if to see the entirety of the injuries. After he seemed satisfied checking it, he moved onto my other leg and deftly removed the bandages in a similar manner to the first. The dilo went over the same process with my other leg, then turned away with a bark and sprinted off. I watched him go until he was out of my line of sight, then looked around the shed I was currently in.

There was a huge amount of grass and leafy plants and fibers that made up the dilo's nest covering the floor. After pushing aside some of it I found that the floor was wood like the inside of the house, and the shed seemed to be pretty solid in construction. The walls were similarly wood, sanded smooth and covered in a thin, not quite clear film of something; probably waterproofing. The roof was pitched, so rain could run off it and not collect. Several small metal hooks line the wall, two of which have wound up coils of rope hanging from them. The others dont have anything hanging from them, and there is one larger hook on the back wall that similarly doesn't have anything hanging from it.

I waited for probably ten or fifteen minutes before I became bored. Seeing as how I wasn't going anywhere, I might as well deal with the ant problem and get it over with. I raised my arm to view my inventory and dumped six or seven of the shells, which materialized on the floor next to me in a pile. I switched the little bar on the right, then exited the screen. After a moment to shudder, I grabbed one of the shells and it disappeared in a dim flash. I nearly gagged as my hand was left covered in giant sloth spit. Apparently manually putting things in kept them in their original state, slimy, dirty, and all.

I repeated the whole process at least five more times, dumping the exoskeleton five or six at a time and then inserting them back into my inventory. It was absolutely disgusting and I nearly threw up once, but I managed to keep my composure. Nearly throwing up also reminded me that I hadn't eaten in quite a while. Between nearly dying, being passed out from nearly dying, and sleeping on the way back I hadn't got the chance to eat. I sat up and scooted towards the front of the shed, knocking a few clumps of the nest out with me, which I hastily shoved back onto the loose pile that made up the dilo's nest.

As soon as I had made my way out of the shed a loud saurian bark rang out from vaguely behind the shed. The red handed dilophosaurus darted out of the brush, shaking a few leaves off himself that had gotten stuck on his quills. Clutched in his claws was a cluster of thick, rough looking green stems. He strode over to me and deposited the plants at my feet and then looked up at me expectantly.

After a moment of confusion, I bent down and picked them up, seemingly to his satisfaction. With an almost haughty look he turned and entered the shed, then began sniffing at the spit that was left on the floor from the ant shells. I recognized the stems he had brought me, but I had no idea what they were called or why the dinosaur had went out to get them and actually gave them to me without expecting a reward. In a flash they where deposited into the implant in my arm, reminding me that I had forgotten to change the mode from automatic.

I gave a brief wave to the dilophosaurus that was shoving lumps of spit covered grass out of his nest, then hobbled my way around the house. Fatty was already snoozing next to the berry trough, curled up in a crescent like shape, looking for all the world like a boulder from behind. The dire wolf had laid down by the fire pit, turning his head to watch as I went past, then laying back down. I would have to remember to do something nice for the canine; probably retrieve the bone that the dilo undoubtably had hidden while we were gone.

I pulled open the door to the house and entered the kitchen, wincing as stepped down on the hard floor. Shannon had her back to me at the counter, doing something to several very large slabs of meat. She wasn't wearing her weirdly textured red armor and was instead wearing the same outfit she wore before we went to the redwood forest. Moth wasn't in the kitchen, and a quick glance to the living room didn't reveal her there. Shannon turned to see me entering and immediately noticed that my bandages were gone. "Hey stay outside, don't bleed on the floor you animal. That'll stain." She just short of pushed me out the door and I nearly tripped, but managed to keep my balance despite the pain. "How did you manage to lose those anyway?" She gestured at my gashed up ankles.

"The dilo tore them off for some reason." After a second of realization I continued, "He wasn't trying to eat me. He just sniffed at them then ran off and brought back some weird plants."

"What do you mean weird plants?" I shrugged then accessed my inventory, removing the plants the dinosaur gave me, and switched the mode from automatic so I wouldn't forget to later. Shannon promptly took them from me. "These are plantain. They're a basic medicinal plant. Mashing them up helps stop bleeding and can help draw out poison from bites and stings. The hellspawn gave you these?"

"Yeah, he ran off into the forest and came back with a clump of these." She stared at me for a moment then glanced in the vague direction of the shed as if in thought.

"He did that after he yanked off the bandages?" I nodded. Under her breath I caught her saying, "There's something up with that monster." She sighed, then turned back to me. "I'll get more bandages. I'm serious about you not coming inside without them. I don't need bloodstains on the floor, do you know how hard those are to get out?"

"I'm guessing very?" A nod from her was my only answer as she went back inside. Seeing no reason to stand while I waited for her, I sat down next to Fatty, who didn't notice or react in the slightest. The pachyrhinosaur was still snoring away, probably exhausted from the excursion. I wondered if Shannon was going to bring him along to the festival or whatever they called it. It seemed that I was going by default; they didn't trust me enough to just leave me unattended at their home base. Understandably so. I would be leery of some sketchy guy I found in the middle of nowhere too.

At that moment, Shannon came back out of the house with a roll of gauze. "Alright, let's get this done."

 **A/ N: Sooooo... I really dropped the ball guys. I'm really sorry. I hope that I never have that long of a hiatus again, and at the very least not unannounced. The arc lull should be over very soon and chapters should be more interesting to read and easier to write, and I should have more time overall to write as well. I hope you all enjoyed this extremely belated chapter.**

 **This should be coming soon, not necessarily next chapter but soon, but character backstories, new faces, new locations, more dinosaurs and assorted critters, emotional moments, and awesome scenes should be expected. As well as puns. You can never escape the puns, even as much as Shannon wishes she could.**

 **IjaiI the not-a-hyenas are hyaenodons.**

 **rsclaymore while I initially didn't plan for a bonfire scene, I'm sure that I can fit one in without issue. It might not happen at the beginning of thanksfest but it will probably happen at some point. It does last a week and my chapters don't cover entire days, so unless they leave early there will be quite a while at Thanksfest.**

 **Deadmanrevival yeah, but he does actually have a pretty good track record. Both Shannon and the dilo wanted to kill him on sight but he's now more or less chill with both and isn't missing any body parts. Leaving the dilo would be a wise move, but he pretty much does what he wants and if the dinosaur is dead set on going not much will stop him.**

 **James24K your wish is granted.**

 **Silverleone and Ari-Dexel13 I'm glad you both enjoy and it seems my readers have a divide on the matter of puns.**

 **SEEK1NPEEK1N I do not have plans for a harem or any new romantic relationships planned. I'm bad at writing excess romance, and I don't want to fill up the story with bad writing.**

 **enterelysium I'm glad you enjoy I'm honored that I'm one of someone's favorite stories.**

 **Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, let me know of any horrible grammar errors I've made. Comments and questions are very appreciated and encouraged, and have a great day, night, or whenever you're readings this. Or don't, as its entirely up to you and I can't tell you what to do.**


	18. Chapter 18- Adservo

"If that comes off again you're putting the next one on yourself." Shannon stood and wiped her hands, clearing off a bit of blood and scab that had rubbed off my injury and onto her. She had made the bandages tighter than last time, though she assured me that it wasn't tight enough to cut off circulation. I reached up my hand so she could help me up, but it went unreciprocated as she turned away and went back inside. I was almost certain that she saw me do it and ignored me on purpose, but I said nothing and stood up myself with some difficulty.

I hobbled inside after Shannon, closing the door behind me. She had returned to preparing or doing whatever it was she was doing to the slabs of meat and didn't turn as I entered. After a moment's consideration I walked over to stand next to her. "What are you doing?" She responded by slamming her palm into the steaklike cut of meat in front of her and grabbing another handful of what looked like salt from a jar.

"Preserving all this. We don't have refrigerators out here and we're well out of the ice sellers trade route. In this heat this stuff will go bad faster thqan a raptor pack could eat it." She slammed her palm into the cut of meat, pounding the fine saltlike powder into it. I glanced at the stack of meat sitting on the counter next to her, which was easily probably as much as I weighed if not more, considering it was the combined amount from a clydesdale sized deer, a seven foot terror bird, and whatever else she had caught.

"Can I help? You have a lot to do." I gestured to the veritable mound, and she glanced at it without stopping the application of powder. She pounded the cut of meat a few more times before seeming to make up her mind.

"I don't need your help for this. Go into the store room and get the parchment and twine though. I'll need to bundle up all of this if I plan on selling. People like it when it's wrapped up, it'll sell for more and the paper's cheap." I nodded and made my way to the living room, pulling down the dropdown staircase with a little difficulty. I assumed that the store room was the other room upstairs that wasn't Shannon's, and I opened the door above Moth's room. The room was full of shelves covered in various mostly unidentifiable stuff and bundled up packages.

After several minutes of searching for a roll of paper I realized that it was stacked in sheets and bundled up itself on the bottom shelf almost like a stack of newspaper. With a bit of complaint from my injuries I pulled the surprisingly heavy ream of paper from the shelf. The paper itself seemed thick and had a near shiny or waxy look to it, and while carrying it near my face it had a very distinct scent that wasn't quite like anything I'd smelt before. The closest I could compare it to was like wax but a bit like gravy or soup broth. Whatever it was it was probably to waterproof the paper, as a soggy package wouldn't exactly be appealing.

Regardless, I walked back down the stairs and then remembered I had forgotten the twine. I set the ream down on the steps and climbed back up the stairs, nearly managing to trip at the top. Luckily for me the twine was conveniently on one of the middle shelves as soon as I walked in, meaning I didn't spend nearly as much time looking for it as the parchment. It was on a spool almost like a kite string and was probably six inches across. Shannon probably didn't use it much considering how much was on the spool. I went back down the staircase once more and grabbed the ream of paper, setting the spool of twine on top of it, hoping it wouldn't roll off. My chest ached from going up and down the stairs so many times and carrying around the easily fifteen pound if not heavier bundle of paper but I ignored it for the time being.

I set the paper and twine on the counter next to Shannon, careful not to put them in the way of what she was doing. She gave a brief nod which I assumed was a thanks, then walked back into the living room. After a few tries I managed to shove the drop down staircase back into the ceiling. I sat down on the floor to allow the pain in my chest to subside. I probably had torn a muscle or a few and I couldn't imagine exerting it like this would make it feel good. It seems I'd just have to put up with it though as there isn't much to do about torn muscles, plus considering it's my chest it's not like I could put a cast or anything on it anyway. After a few more moments of letting the pain subside I stand up and walk back into the kitchen.

Shannon was still pounding preservative into a cut of meat, though now she had a small pile of finished meat. Considering how short of a time she's been working on it she's making a lot faster progress than I had thought she would, and watching her she moved with surprising speed. She didn't look up at me even when I stood next to her and she had seemed to have settled into a rhythm. Each cut of meat was roughly the same size and general shape, and she worked with an almost mechanical pattern, deviating only slightly for each differently shaped piece.

With an almost jarring abruptness she broke her pattern and raised her implant to retrieve something from it. I blinked in surprise and almost flinched at the unexpected movement. She drew a small knife, much smaller than the ones I'd seen her use to chop up meat with before. This one seemed much more delicate and almost looked like a surgical tool. With impressive precision she cut into the slice of meat in front of her and carefully pulled out what looked like a small organ or fleshy sack from within it. I stepped back in disgust, then she incredibly carefully picked it up and set it on the counter in front of me. "Don't touch that. I'm going to get a jar to seal that thing in. You don't want to get any of it on you and I'll be able to tell if you do."

"Is it poison or something?" I took a half step back in fear that it was some kind of deadly toxin or infectious.

"No it's not poison. It's a gland from an Oviraptor. Ovi can encourage other dinosaurs to lay eggs, and it has a similar effect on people and other mammals if you get what I mean." I nod and take another step back, not wanting to find out firsthand if I understood what she meant. Shannon turned and walked out of the room, depositing the small knife back into her inventory. I stood there, unsure what to do for a moment, then bent down to look at the gland, keeping at least a foot between me and it. It was rather unassuming, looking simply like an oval shaped sack about an inch and a half long with a bumpy texture a little like a golf ball. As I heard Shannon come back down the stairs I took a step back, not wanting her to think I had touched the fleshy object despite her warnings.

Shannon walked in, having already unscrewed the jar and set the glass container and it's lid on the counter. With as much care as she seemingly could muster she picked up the sack and set it in the jar, careful not to drop it in and possibly burst it open. She screwed on the lid tightly, then let out a breath that she had apparently been holding throughout the process. She promptly deposited the sealed jar in her inventory then turned to me. "You didn't touch it while I was gone?" I shook my head vigorously and after a moment of staring at me she nodded and turned back to the counter.

Taking another handful of the preservative she started settling back into a rhythm. Watching the ease with which she worked made me wonder how she learned to do all the things she did. Aside from sewing and weaving which seemed to be moth's proficiency, she seemed to be entirely self sufficient. She acts like an adult despite not looking much older than me, though to be fair I don't know quite how old I am. It would probably be rude to ask how old she is as she probably doesn't know, assuming her memories are as lacking as mine. That might actually factor in her maturity. If she was all on her own out here with no past and no memories, the fight to survive and struggle to live would quickly change you. To be honest with myself I've probably changed in the short time since I washed up on the beach. If Shannon's been out here for two years I can't imagine how much different she is from when she first arrived. The responsibility of keeping herself and Moth alive would probably force her to grow up fast and learn how to take care of them both.

I'm interrupted from my thoughts as Shannon snaps her fingers in front of my face. I turn to her, a bit surprised and confused. "I asked you to pass me the parchment idiot. Did the hyenas mess up your hearing too?" I notice that she's gone through the entire pile and is waiting, as the parchment is right next to me and apparently she's not rude enough to reach around me to get it. I quickly grab the bound up paper and roll of twine and slide them over to where she was working, then step out of the way. Shannon rolls her eyes and unbinds the stack of paper, then removes one of the sheets.

With as much skill as she used with the preservative she folds up one of the cuts of meat in the waxy paper and ties it up with a short length of twine, making a small bow at the top from the remaining ends of twine. She set it aside and once more she got into a groove, working through the pile at a steady pace. Albeit the process was slower than putting the preservative into the meat, she still worked at a considerably faster pace than if I were doing it. At this point I'd probably just be slowing her down if I tried to help.

Realizing I was of no use here, as quiet and as inconspicuous as I could I walked out of the room so as not to interrupt her. The living room was empty, Moth apparently still in her room. I sat on the couch, being reminded again that it wasn't cushioned. My chest stung with pain once more, reminding me about it too. I leaned back into the couch and was also reminded that the back of my head is still sore and hurting and that pressing it against things hurt quite badly. I had nearly forgotten about the bandage attached to my head, as the dilo hadn't torn it off like the ones around my ankles. I'm pretty sure at this point that I'm more injury than human right now. This really sucks and I can only imagine how much worse this could have been if Shannon hadn't known how to treat my injuries.

Looking back I've been incredibly lucky. I haven't the scarcest clue how to properly survive out here. I know how to make a fire and that's about it. If I had actually been hurt by the dilophosaurus on the first day I would have had no idea how to treat it, and if I had caught some disease or eaten or been bitten by something toxic or venomous I would have no clue how to deal with it. The only food I've gotten out here was a few handfuls of berries, meat that I stole from the carnotaurus, and the scrawny leg of a compsognathus. There's no way I could have hunted any animal large enough to actually feed myself. I'm not even sure I could bring myself to do it unless I was literally starving or being attacked by the animal. I only actually swung at the Terror Bird with intent to kill because I was literally dying. I'm not suited to survive out here. If I hadn't come across Moth and Shannon I probably wouldn't have lasted a week out here.

My internal monologue is interrupted my Moth's door opening and the smaller girl walking out. She was no longer wearing the multicolored armor and instead was wearing a sleeveless light blue shirt and a skirt of similar color. She sat down next to me on the couch. "Are you feeling alright?"

"Yeah I'm fine. My head still hurts and my chest hurts and I still feel half eaten but otherwise I'm fine." She giggled a little but still looked concerned.

"Are you sure? I've never been hurt that bad before and I haven't seen Shannon get hurt that bad before." I nodded assuringly and rapped on the my head with my fist like I was knocking on a door.

"My brains are still in one piece. I'm gonna be just fine, ask Shannon. She says I probably won't even get very many scars from this." I gestured to the kitchen where as far as I knew Shannon was still wrapping up the preserved meat. Not five seconds later Shannon herself walked into the Living room, then turned around and opened the door outside and looked around for a moment, then shut the door and walked over to the couch. Moth moved out of the way and I scooted down to make room for her to sit down. She didn't say anything for a moment and took a long drink from the mug she brought with her, then set the mug on her lap.

"What conversation did I interrupt?" She asked and took another drink from her mug.

"Are you sure he's going to be okay Shannon? He got hurt pretty bad. I haven't seen you get that hurt before." She seemed to contemplate for a few moments before answering.

"If I hadn't got to him as fast as I had he probably would have died. He had lost a lot of blood by the time I found him and if I hadn't stopped his bleeding he probably would have bled out pretty quick. I've got him fixed up though so he's not going to die. I'm still going to have somebody check him out when we get to town to make sure he didn't dislocate something or mess up his insides. We're leaving tomorrow morning to go." Moth nodded, looking at least a little more calm about the situation. I however was unsettled a little. I realize that I nearly died but I didn't realize that I was quite that close. It also has only occurred to me now that I could have internal damage.

"How far away exactly is the town from here?"

"About as far away as the redwoods if a little further. It's mostly flat and grassy the way there though so it's an easier ride. We'll go through the Smugglers Pass."

"Smugglers Pass? That doesn't sound safe and I'd rather not nearly die again." Shannon rolled her eyes.

"They call it that because they like how it sounds. As far as I know nobody has actually ever smuggled anything through it. It's perfectly safe, at least this time of year. Once and a while you'll get one of those nomad tribes who think it's a good idea to ambush people and steal everything they have or a carnivore that decides that it's making the pass it's new territory. Though around this time there are so many people there that attacking anybody would end up with a mob chasing after you." That makes me feel a bit better about the situation. "Because I've got to get everything ready before we go we're leaving tomorrow morning instead of today. It will also do all of us good to get a proper night of sleep before the trip and eat without having to pay for it." With that she downed the rest of her mug and stood up, then walked into the kitchen.

 **A/N: Alright. So this chapter took longer than intended and didn't accomplish much. Sorry. I know I don't usually do and don't like timeskips because it means character interaction is happening 'offscreen', but since even I am wanting to start Thanksfest already I will likely either feature a long timeskip next chapter or make an exceptionally long chapter for the next one. I swear there will be action or at least interesting stuff soon.**

 **DaRumpyBur thank you for your comment and I'm very glad you enjoyed my story so far. To be honest I was worried that my first few days were boring or uninteresting due to lack of dialogue and rather repetitive nature, as for the most part it was simply him walking around and trying not to get eaten by the occasional dinosaur. I'm glad that apparently it was not so.**

 **TheJaiganticBridge The story lives on! I'm incredibly honored that I encouraged someone to make their own Ark story. I've read most of yours and I must say you are doing well. :)**

 **seekinpeekin I find it really rude not to reply to my viewers as you guys are the literal entire reason that my story is popular, I feel like I at least owe it to you guys to give responses when you ask me questions or leave such nice reviews. As for Scorched Earth, there is no way for any of the survivors on the Ark to get from one to the other. I will say that Scorched Earth does exist in this world/universe however. As for the dragon and bosses, well, if I told you, where's the fun in that?**

 **BlackHum3r while I have expressed previously that I won't have any canon shippings, at least between the characters you all have met, I absolutely love the shipping names. Hellwarrior has to be one of the coolest sounding ships I have ever heard of.**

 **aIl you awesome viewers If any of you wonderful people make fan art, shipping or otherwise, send me the link and I will proudly display them on my Author Profile Page (assuming that they're younger user friendly of course, I don't want to get in trouble with anybody for showing any M rated stuff)**

 **Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, let me know of any horrible grammar errors I've made. Comments and questions are very appreciated and encouraged, and have a great day, night, or whenever you're readings this. Or don't, as its entirely up to you and I can't tell you what to do.**


End file.
